TO WHERE I AM NOW

Some years ago I was walking down Camden High Street along with all the cool kids, trendies, Indie wannabes, fashion victims, tourists and hipsters (although they weren’t called that yet). I was on my way to Camden Market, when I chanced upon two young police officers, a boy and a girl, walking casually down the road. The boy had a practiced stroll, walking with his hands clasped behind his back despite his age (I thought only Prince Charles did this?). Behind me and ahead of them there was a white van parked on a double yellow line, probably a trader attempting to unload his wares, when I heard the young police boy say to the young police girl “Should we nick ‘im?”. He said it in something of a ‘cartoon copper accent’ and I thought to myself, do these people really talk to each other like this? Apparently they do and it’s not like they were veterans. The reason I thought of this was because I was sitting in the archive today and I heard a male outside the window admonishing a female for nearly getting him ‘nicked over the crack!’. It made me realize something about that old cliche ‘it takes a thief to catch a thief’. It doesn’t matter what side of the law you are on, you need to speak the same language. I wonder what cops and robbers learn from each other? Is it knowing how to fool each other? But then they’d know.

In the days of cassettes, pre CD and post vinyl, Camden was the place to go at the weekend to get a bootleg of your favourite band, literally the day after they played in London. They often had red inners and some text (generally wrong), but they’d been recorded at the show surreptitiously the night before and one presumes multiple copies were made later at home. If it was Friday or Saturday a busy weekend market day was likely with keen fans looking for rarities. The reason I know they were there so soon after the show is because I went up there the night after playing at the Town And Country Club in Kentish Town and there was a cassette of the night before’s performance on sale. I remember that there was a picture of me on the cover extracted from a promo pic of the band. I bought it, I can’t remember how much it cost, maybe £3, actually I don’t remember, but I do have other similar boots, one of Suzanne Vega, one of The Waterboys. I guess someone was making a living out of this, but honestly bootlegs of my music never bothered me because the only people that ever wanted them were die-hards who bought everything else legitimately. Let ‘em have it.

Tangent: Talking of Let Him Have it. Did you ever see that film with Christopher Eccleston? It was based on a true story. This from Wikipedia:

Derek Bentley (Eccleston) is an illiterate, epileptic young adult with developmental disabilities who falls into a gang led by a younger teenager named Christopher Craig (Paul Reynolds). During the course of the robbery of a warehouse in Croydon, in which Bentley is encouraged to participate by Craig, the two become trapped by the police. Officers order Craig to put down his gun. Bentley, who by this time has already been arrested, shouts “Let him have it, Chris” – whether he means the phrase literally (“Let him have the gun”) or figuratively (“Open fire!”) is unclear. Craig fires, killing one officer and wounding another. Because he is a minor, Craig is given a prison sentence for the crime. Meanwhile, Bentley is sentenced to death under the English common law principle of joint enterprise, on the basis that his statement to Craig was an instigation to shoot. Bentley’s family makes an effort for clemency which reaches Parliament. However, the Home Secretary (who has the power to commute the death sentence) declines to intervene. Despite his family’s efforts and some public support, Bentley is executed in 1953 within a month of being convicted, before Parliament takes any official action.

Today I walked into the supermarket and as I went through the door I noticed that the social distancing awareness notice said ‘please keep 2 metres apart’ and then in brackets ‘6 feet’. I am 62 and although I’ve lived in Sweden and have a German wife, I think in feet and inches because that’s what we were brought up with. I always thought it was rather humorous to say to Olivia, “I love every centimetre of you” instead of “I love every inch of you”. The metric system has been a point of contention with Europe for years. There’s an amusing article about the British reluctance to go metric here.

On the subject of social distancing and measurement, Olivia’s Dad told us today that the German recommendation has been reduced from 2 metres to 1.5 meters. Those crazy specific Germans. 1.5 metres in the Imperial measurement is 4.92126 feet. Dear British residents, as we see a decline in Covid-19 casualties, we recommend that social distancing gets closer and instead of being 6 feet apart you should now be 4.92126 apart.

Music today has continued into weirdo land with Port Of Suez, lots of crazy ouds and percussion with mad violinists playing weird Arabic scales. It’s worth it just for the album cover.

Then off to Andy Votel’s label of esoteric content, Finders Keepers. “The Sound Of Wonder!” – The first wave of plugged-in pop at the Pakistani picture house. It’s a double album of bonkers music from Pakistan, recorded for film soundtracks for films made in ‘Lollywood’ between 1973 – 1980. For those of you that don’t know, Bollywood is so called because the film industry in India was based in Bombay, well in Pakistan it was based in Lahore, hence the name. The other day I mentioned Hollywood and Dollywood, well there’s even another one, based in Nigeria, you got it, Nollywood.

All this amazing music from exotic countries with odd instrumentation and odd rhythms and inscrutable lyrics makes you just want to listen to Germany’s Scorpions. When the Scorpions first formed their songs were more instrumental than vocal and their first album Lonesome Crow (1972) is one of the great German Rock albums. It’s generally avoided because of what they became musically as well as the leather and spandex image, but if you like great guitar tones and Rock music this is for you. It features not only main man and brother Rudolph but also a 16 year old Michael Schenker. It’s most like an early seventies Deep Purple album with less vocals. It’s also produced by Conny Plank, a reason in itself to listen.

Their second album was Fly To The Rainbow (1974). Michael Schenker had left to join UFO and in losing him they had to regroup with a new version of the band. Uli Roth (lead guitar), Jürgen Rosenthal (drums) and Francis Buchholz (bass) had all been members of Dawn Road and they simply combined bands to create Scorpions 2 with Rudolph Schenker on rhythm guitar and Klaus Meine on vocals. What happened to original drummer Wolfgang Dziony and bassist Lothar Heimberg? They went on to use 6 different drummers and 4 different bass players over their recorded history. For this album the band had left more experimental label Brain and signed to RCA. They recorded their first album in Hamburg, close to Hannover where they were from, but with the new label they were sent to the expensive Musicland studios in Munich for a more traditional guitar and Rock vocal album although at this stage despite his Rock voice, Meine had not as yet been the exclusive Scorpions vocalist, sharing lead vocal with Schenker and Roth.

Roth commented on the Fly To The Rainbow album cover by calling it “ludicrous”. Scorpions went on to have at least 4 controversial album covers in the coming years, but that’s for another day. They went on to sell millions of records but as is often the case with Hard Rock bands that find fame, they start great and slowly get worse and worse.

Song Of The Day is Spark from Live At The Knitting Factory in New York. A show that was accidentally recorded on a steam-powered cassette player in 1988. Wow, I haven’t heard this in 20 years.

 

Spark

I’m saturated
Wet with your tears
You spill so easily
In reflection I’ll see you again
Approach me, soak me
Faith, faith, breathe!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark!

I’m interested
You’ve always been a subject
That I could learn
Splendid hills, unconquerable mountains
Climb, don’t ever turn back
Seed, seed, grow!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark!

I’m saturated
Wet with your tears
You spill so easily
In reflection I’ll see you again
Approach me, soak me
Faith, faith, breathe!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark