TO WHERE I AM NOW

From mizzle to wind. I was explaining to Dare the other day that I had no idea what direction anything was in, I haven’t really found a need to know where north is, but today he told me that this strong wind that was pushing us towards the sea was an “easterly” and it’s warm because it’s coming from over the land and not from the sea. That made me think about all the things I don’t know and all the things that I do know that others don’t know. And that made me think about brains and intelligence and that made me wonder about wisdom. There’s a lot of wires up there that need to be connected properly and so many factors that can lead you astray. All kinds of traumas can affect your decisions, but are some people really ‘cleverer’ than others or is it just the circumstances in which they were educated, brought up or even loved? What’s my point? Getting the best out of your brain, it seems such a shame not to let it operate at its full potential especially when everything seems to be going south.

The seagulls are having chicks and they are huge. There’s different types of seagulls here in Penzance. There’s the ones with the grey wings (herring gulls), the bigger ones with the black wings (great black-backed gulls) and the smaller ones (black-headed gulls) that lose their dark-brown head feathers in the winter – for some reason. There were two lots of chicks on the roof of the old people’s centre in Morrab Gardens today, three smaller chicks with the grey-winged parents and two large chicks with the black-winged parent (only one). Those single parent seagull families are so sad. The seagulls were screeching like crazy today, one imagines to keep predators away from the family but they were certainly attracting attention. A lady stopped to talk to us as I was taking some pics. She said she takes pictures of bees. She was a bona fide bee lover. I’m a bee lover, too. Last time Olivia and Dare and I were walking we saved a bumblebee’s life. This whole thing about the extinction of the bees (and insects in general) is one of the big environmental issues that is way down the agenda. I don’t think de Pfeffel lies awake at night worrying about the bees, but he probably should, from what I’ve read if there’s a bee problem there’s a human problem. And by the way World Bee Day is May 20th, I guess you missed it.

Olivia and I went to the post office today to pick up the (insane) Exmagma record and as there was a queue, we sat on the wall opposite catching some rare rays and watched a helicopter hovering in the sky. The backdrop was some sun, some blue sky, lots of wind and massive billowing white clouds that were trying to turn black. It was a different man at the counter today but also a regular there who also doesn’t ask me for my ID. He was talking to me about vinyl. He mentioned Van der Graaf Generator. In every corner, in every unexpected place there’s a surprise waiting to be discovered like the VDGG fan in the post office. Imagine if we could really look into people’s heads, see the passions. At this suggestion you might think about the dark thoughts, the diabolical secrets, but what about the positive ideas that aren’t ever communicated from behind that window in the parcel office, the sharing and the giving. In the end it’s all about that grey matter. To think how a person’s life is ruined by a bad influence. But imagine if it was “All back to my brain tonight”. “Hi George, what’s happening?” – “We’re going to hang in Harry’s brain tonight, wanna come?” – “Sure, what’s in there?” – “All kinds of interesting stuff, lots of travels in Africa, some philosophical thoughts on existence and a ton of facts about creatures that live at the bottom of the deepest oceans. It’s going to be interesting”. Ok, so it’s a lecture! But that would be good, out of the pub, straight to a lecture about interesting things before bed.

Olivia took a pic of Dare and I at the sea today. That’s not exactly true, Olivia took a ton of pictures of us by the sea today, it wasn’t that long but it was very windy and Dare was commenting on the days when most pics of us looked good, whereas these days you gotta fight to find a good one. I’m not sure how fabulous our image needs to be these days, how svelte our bodies are expected to be and really Pitchfork or Mojo aren’t going to be putting a request in for a photo. Strange how many people get in the various medias and how many don’t. That’s why there’s so many magazine genres. It didn’t used to be like that, we were all in it together, Al Green and Deep Purple, Joni Mitchell and Gregory Isaacs would all be in the Melody Maker in 1975. You kinda fall through the cracks if they’re not sure where to put your music or your image, you go in the miscellaneous file, it’s a dark and damp place with no windows, no entrance and no exit…

Music today has been challenging and progressive, starting with Exmagma, Goldball (1974). It’s the album that I received today and really whatever the music sounds like, you just have to have it for the cover art. It’s produced by Conny Plank and meanders around some pretty out there experimental improvised Jazz Rock. They were originally called Magma, but when they heard about the French band Magma they just called themselves Exmagma, makes sense. They formed in Stuttgart, two members were German, Andy Goldner (guitars, bass, sax, vocals) and Thomas Balluff (keyboards, trumpet, flute, vocals) with Fred Arthur Braceful an American who’d been in the US military in Germany. He sadly died in 1995 aged 57. There are three albums, this is the second. Original copies would set you back a few weeks’ wages. One of the great things about the resurgence and interest in vinyl is that these kinds of records got reissued.

This inspired me to dig out some Soft Machine albums and this first album from 1969 is really something, it’s both extraordinarily strange and easy to like. Robert Wyatt’s voice and any band that has Wyatt and Kevin Ayers playing together has to be listened to regularly. Kevin Ayers’ spoken word on Why Are We Sleeping, Mike Ratledge’s thundering organ sound. By Volume 2 (1969) Ayers had gone and Hugh Hopper guesting on one track on the first album joined permanently. This is real Jazz Fusion, but by men with bent minds and odd visions, men who saw fascinating shapes in the tangled branches, men who danced under the moon at midnight in strange masks. It was music made by men whose brains were full of knowledge and abandon, simultaneously thinking hard and throwing caution to the wind. Here’s some footage of them on French TV in 1970:

 
Lineup / Musicians
Robert Wyatt / drums, vocals
Hugh Hopper / bass guitars
Mike Ratledge / lowrey organ
Elton Dean / alto saxophone, saxello
Lyn Dobson / soprano saxophone, harmonica, flute, voice

Last album of the night is in honour of the man at the parcel office. Van der Graaf Generator’s Aerosol Grey Machine (1969). It’s a classic from the first track Afterwards. It was originally a Peter Hammill solo album that he decided to turn into a band with Hugh Banton on keys, Guy Evans on drums and the late Keith Ellis on bass who mysteriously died way too early in Germany in 1978 on tour with Iron Butterfly, he was just 32 years old.

I’m a major fan and one night in Canada, the ex band got to play with them, what a wonderful thing that was, hanging out with the three original guys. After their first album they added David Jackson on sax, Olivia and I met him too in Germany at Night Of The Prog when he was playing with ex King Crimson violinist David Cross. What an amazing band VDGG are – buy all the records, sell the furniture. Peter Hammill is one of the great passionate Progressive singers, an influence for Johnny Lydon. (Did you notice the lack of guitars in tonight’s selections?) Check out VDGG here live in 1970 with Nic Potter on grinding bass, David Jackson with the two sax trick, Guy Evans on rolling drums, Hugh Banton on soundscape keys and Peter Hammill on acoustic and brilliant singing!

 
Song Of The Day is The Lantern from In Reflection (1987), because it seems like I could have written this in 1970.

 

The Lantern

In the same destructive way
Your broken bridge lies in the hay
You cannot spell you only lean
Where magic words direct the stream

Underneath this buckled quilt
Flowers old and precious wilt
They take you to a bluster place
And dance around your face

Safer calendars I have seen
But whoever knew what months must mean
I sail the skies and fly through the sea
No miner, cook or fool can die so weakly
Can die so weakly
Can die so weakly

Hasty dashed in quicker clothes
What if the fishes eat the loaves
Backward buildings drop to dust
Gutters turn to rust

I stamp my feet and scare the ghost
Welcome that dimension’s host
He flickers and snickers into his robe
And skips around the globe

During weeks when I was grey
I posted night to greet the day
I shunned the light for beams of black
No sailor, ship or sea can sink on land
Can sink on land
Can sink on land

The lantern swings until your arm hurts
And all you did was signal your demise

Safer calendars I have seen
But whoever knew what months must mean
I sail the skies and fly through the sea
No miner, cook or fool can die so weakly
Can die so weakly
Can die so weakly

Ooh (can die so weakly)
Ooh (can die so weakly)
Ooh (can die so weakly)
Ooh (can die so weakly)

Ahh (can die so weakly)
Ahh (can die so weakly)
Ahh (can die so weakly)
Ahh (can die so weakly)

Ooh (can die so weakly)
Ooh (can die so weakly)

(Willson-Piper)
In Reflection (1987)