TO WHERE I AM NOW

I woke up this morning earlier than usual and felt sick. I had a headache and was nauseous, so I dragged myself up, went to the loo, drank some water, took a couple of aspirin and went back to bed. That seemed like the best way to deal with it. But sometimes lying down doesn’t help, it was stuffy in the room and I started feeling worse. So I got up, collected together the recycling (always practical) and went down to the sea. I felt sick all the way down but the fresh air definitely helped. I dropped off the recycling and walked onto the stony beach, just trying to walk off the sickness. The tide was out and it was a little cold but I noticed that there were quite a few people about, people were emerging from their isolation. I decided to sit down on a bench and watch the world go by whilst trying to recover. There were people sitting on the beach despite the looming black clouds and a chill mixed with a fake promise of warmth that deteriorated as soon as you expected it. I’m not sure how long I sat there; until I was getting cold I suppose. I was a little better but as I got up to move and walk towards the boat pond I felt a little dodgy again. There were two swans on the pathway so I went and sat at a table near them, just to watch them, admire them.

As I was watching them preen themselves, people were passing by and it was rather interesting to observe the people as much as it was the swans. I had given them a wide berth probably because of the goose attack by mad Arthur when I was a kid. But others didn’t do this. Two women, must have been in their late thirties, walked along the path by the side of the pond right past the swans, one of them had to move its neck so the woman didn’t bang into it, talk about nonchalant. It was weird, the women weren’t scared of the swans, the swans didn’t feel a threat, the women’s biggest crime might have been that they could just so casually ignore two such beautiful creatures. Although they could have realized that the swan had to move its neck out of the way as they passed – they were just talking, talking, talking. There was even animal dung on the path right there too from perhaps a bigger creature (not sure what), it was in four or five spots but they just walked through it. I think if they’d walked into a lion’s cage, the lions would be so bamboozled by their lack of concern that they would have left them alone.

Other people walked by, one girl with a pug on a leash, the pug wanted in, the swans sensed it but the girl dragged the dog away commenting, “they’re bigger than you”. A family walked by with two little girls, the mother was shouting at the kids all the way, swearing, telling them to hurry up. The swans were thinking ‘thank God we aren’t human’. The young family parked for lunch on another of the tables, far enough away from them to lose interest. A lady with two children and a dog that wasn’t on a lead came by, the swans saw the dog but the dog was disinterested and they all moved on. These passersby continued for the twenty minutes or so that I was there. In the meantime the swans preened and rubbed their long necks against their wings hardly moving their feet, a sturdy base for operations. When you see the beautiful snow white sleek beauty of a swan and then see their stubby, thick knobbly black legs and flat webbed feet, the contrasts are striking.

The last lady of note to pass by had a Zimmer frame. She was coming down the path, they were on the path, there was poop on the path in five different places where the swans were standing. She got closer and closer, she must have been in her eighties, no expression on her face at all. She just cruised through the swans and the poop without any incident, total confidence from both parties. The world is fascinating on such a basic level. I thought it might be time to leave so I headed for the studio via Rowe’s, the pasty shop. I hadn’t eaten anything or even had a cup of tea, that is sooo not like me. In the studio, Dare had been and gone and was coming back. Olivia was there, I just sat down trying to feel better, I opened the window and kept the fresh air coming. Olivia gave me a ginger tablet and I nibbled at my pasty and that actually started to help.

Dare was doing a vocal remix of a Space Summit track and moving on to prepping A². I popped in and out but I was just trying to prepare myself for a sesh with Noelle in Montreal. I was improving, slowly. Then Olivia said, “Did you see the message from Noelle? There’s a thunderstorm and power outage in Montreal”. So Noelle had to postpone till Thursday. I did actually get to speak to Chris in New Jersey a little later but by that time I was feeling much better.

We had dinner, cottage pie, broccoli and peas and that was just the kind of meal I needed. We watched an episode of Star Trek, the concept was almost good but the storyline was not really there. This takes me to now. Olivia is in the other room practicing violin. I’ve been writing and done Duolingo French and now I’m going to get to today’s four albums.

So, music today started with one of my favourite bands that hardly anybody likes, mentions, rates, listens to or even remembers. I always know that a band is good when AllMusic gives it two stars. Steamhammer formed in England in 1968 as part of the Blues scene with Kieran White on lead vocals, guitar and harmonica and Martin Quittenton on guitar. Martin Pugh joined on guitar with Steve Davy on bass and Michael Rushton on drums. Mountains (1970), the first album I played tonight, was their third album and featured some moody Blues (not the band), warm sounds and lots of feel. You can hear the love for their work in the record, or at least you can hear that they understand what they’re doing. If you can’t hear that you shouldn’t be reviewing it. It would be like reviewing Bob Dylan and complaining that it’s too wordy. But all these bands from this era, like Fleetwood Mac, Groundhogs and Free, have this character and I love it. But despite the existence of Ten Years After and Savoy Brown in the collection, it doesn’t stop me liking Echo And The Bunnymen or Cocteau Twins, neither does it stop me liking Billie Eilish or Bob Marley. It’s like God, you don’t have to commit, not everyone can be right about the creation of the universe, especially if there’s so many different gods, so if you don’t get it, follow your own god or all the gods (or non-gods) and leave the others alone. Cream anyone?

Steamhammer released four albums whilst they were together but by the time it came to recording their second album MK ll (1969) Quittenton had gone. He found himself co-writing two of Rod Stewart’s most memorable singles, Maggie May and You Wear It Well. Drummer Rushton had also gone, replaced by Mick Bradley and flautist and saxophonist Steve Jolliffe joined. This album was graced with more AllMusic stars this time (as the others are too) and is their typical brand of inventive Blues with simple Progressive leanings. They’d abandoned the idea of flute and sax on Mountains but on this album Steve Jolliffe is definitely there, in their minds making up for the missing Martin Quittenton.

At this point I went to their last album, Speech (1972), leaving the first to last. Speech was only released in Germany, Kieran White had decided to leave as had bassist Steve Davy. The album was left to Martin Pugh on guitar and Mick Bradley on drums. They had added Louis Cennamo on bass and had guest lead vocalist Garth Watt-Roy (yes, Norman from Ian Dury’s band, Garth was his elder brother). It’s a more experimental jazzy affair which is what is good about it. The first side is some kind of suite and Side 2 is mainly one long track, depending on which version of the album you look at.

So back to the very first album released in 1969. Only Martin Pugh had survived all four incarnations. This was cutting edge when it came out, the British Blues boom was in full swing and this is a fine reminder of the time. You can hear the sixties in it, it’s a bit like John Mayall in the vocal department with that nasal tone and it also has that Ian Anderson vocal sound when Jethro Tull were on the Blues train. But the band is just somewhere else, much wilder and the lack of traditional constraint mixed with the oncoming seventies influence makes it interesting in the same way as Cream were mixing Blues with Psychedelia two years earlier. At this point Led Zep were a contemporary. This album also features the track Junior’s Wailing, recorded later by Status Quo on Ma Kelly’s Greasy Spoon (1970). After listening to Ricky’s eighties picks yesterday and although that’s when I started to make records, my heart loves these warm sounds, having said that the ex band was always fighting against the eighties and the seventies.

Keiran White sang some with Nucleus but moved to Oregon where he became a truck driver. He died of cancer in 1995. Martin Quittenton almost formed a band with Manfred Mann but ultimately left the music biz with some mental health problems. He died in 2015. Steve Jolliffe ended up joining two different incarnations of Tangerine Dream. Mick Bradley died of leukemia before the release of Speech and the record is dedicated to him and contains a lengthy drum solo on Side 2. Louis Cennamo played with Colosseum and formed Armageddon with Martin Pugh and Keith Relf from The Yardbirds who’d helped produce the final Steamhammer album. He was also in the early version of Renaissance which turned into Illusion. If you want to get your head around the birth of Renaissance and their development, well that is another interesting story – if you like this kind of thing.

Song Of The Day is Velvet Fuselage from In Reflection (1987), because Psychedelia can live at the same time as the Blues, even in the same band.

 

Velvet Fuselage

Looking on a thousand garments worn by priests on summer days
Shallow pools of milky summer ripple past in different ways
Facts or trickles, untrue words spill gleaming dust on dimpled lands
Tables full of glossy fruits with fingerprints from dirty hands

How can minutes whisper
When clocks are always loud
The afternoon gets crisper
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage
How can I be growing
When the sea has not returned
If the sky’s not snowing
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage

Cooler than the secret planet fences separate the hills
On she goes and bends the trenches, kills the colonel with her spells
Glassy nights have turned to thrillers, frightening the broken black
Streamlined like the best of killers, elbow twisted in a sack

Must I sell our water
When creamy faith’s inspired
The coffee clowns are worried sick
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage
Plan the reconstruction
Evacuate your face
Estimate the damage caused
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage

She tries, she tries, she tries, she tries

Looking on a thousand garments worn by priests on summer days
Shallow pools of milky summer ripple past in different ways
Cooler than the secret planet, fences separate the hills
On she goes and bends the trenches, bends the colonel with her spells

How can minutes whisper
When clocks are always loud
The afternoon gets crisper
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage
How can I be growing
When the sea has not returned
If the sky’s not snowing
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage

Must I sell our water
When creamy faith’s inspired
The coffee clowns are worried sick
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage
Plan the reconstruction
Evacuate your face
Estimate the damage caused
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage

How can minutes whisper
When clocks are always loud
The afternoon gets crisper
A Ginger Witch, a Velvet Fuselage
How can I be growing
When the sea has…

(Willson-Piper)
In Reflection (1987)