TO WHERE I AM NOW

Early rising for me means before midday, early to bed means 4AM. It’s a different scale, the hours are the same, I just like to think, work, create, enjoy everything later. There’s something about the still of the night. So today was early rise for a sesh with Tony in Sydney who has been working on recording his songs with members of legendary Australian band Tamam Shud. Then straight after, a sesh with Rajan in Brooklyn. It’s wonderful going for a trip around the world on a Sunday morning before you even get out onto the streets of Penzance. Around 4PM we went to see the arrows. Yellow arrows have been painted along all the pavements in town. In Penzance there is an elevated pavement on one side of the main street which has little steps to the road every few feet. Some of these have No Entry signs. Some wag has painted arrows going in circles and added another arrowhead to confuse people as to which way to go, but in a different yellow paint and it’s a scrappy job. All I know is that tomorrow on the first day of the shops being allowed to open, there’s going to be trouble.

There were two men in the queue ahead of us in the supermarket today. They were both bald with beards, both had T-shirts, shorts and sneakers, but they didn’t notice each other. I thought that’s interesting because if I saw someone that was wearing the same clothes and had the same look as me I’d notice, wouldn’t I? If two aliens walked into the supermarket they’d notice each other, wouldn’t they? Maybe these days there’s a generic look and people don’t notice each other if they look the same. Having thought this through for 10 seconds I realize that society makes people look like each other and that’s normal.

After we’d been directed by the arrows to walk in circles on an empty pre-opening deserted Sunday street, we headed down the hill to the harbour where we sat and gazed at the boats bobbing up and down on a middle tide, not in or out. The sun was warm when it could get through the clouds and it was chilly sitting there when it was behind the clouds. I was looking up through my sunglasses, my eyes penetrating the white fluffy bundles trying to see if they were moving past the yellow ball and into the scattered blue sections of sky. But the clouds were not just white, there were also black clouds and when the sun got trapped behind those there wasn’t even a glow. Still, after about 10 minutes the sun broke through and I felt the warmth on my arms. That burning ball in the sky is our life source and to think that one day it will burn out. Well, by then we’ll all be living on Utopian ‘thought planets’ as floating consciousness, wondering what it was like to have a body or a similar pair of shorts to one of your species.

French today was interesting, getting a little trickier, but I’m top of my Duolingo league which doesn’t actually mean that I’m better than anyone else, it just means that I’m initially keener and put more time in. I’m enjoying it and the thought of actually being able to watch a French movie in French with no subtitles is exciting to me, ask me about that in 2025. The league means that they take a random selection of 50 subscribers (it’s free) and the top ten with the most collected ‘credits’ go up to the next league (I’m in the Silver league at the moment). The bottom 5 go back down to the Bronze league. So they are creating competition for those that see it that way. But it’s like yoga, you just operate at your own speed and level of understanding.

Joe the masterer dropped around today with the mastered and sequenced version of the new Space Summit album. That’s one of my tasks tomorrow, listen to it and approve it. Then comes the plan; the release, the cover art, making the world out there aware of this great new album (as well as the great new MOAT album). They’re all so great! Ha ha. Well I hope that when you get to hear these two (quite different) records you will agree. In the meantime we continue working on the next project in the studio (Ahad’s record) and wonder how we can find our way to play shows in a future where the pandemic still lingers like the Sword of Damocles over our heads. For now we’ll just be following the yellow arrows In Circles (and I’ll be announcing something about that song soon).

Music today comes from an underrated, little talked about band from the Motown stable, The Undisputed Truth. They were put together by Temptations producer Norman Whitfield as a vehicle for his Psychedelic Soul experiments. Their first album was released in 1971 and had a hit song, Smiling Faces Sometimes, that made it to No.3 on the Billboard chart. They were released on the Gordy label (Berry Gordy was the Motown main man). The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as were most of The Undisputed Truth songs. Here’s the lyric (in those days they would smile when they lied, these days they don’t even bother to hide it):

Smiling faces sometimes
Pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces
Of the evil that lurks within (can you dig it?)
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Oh, oh, yeah

Let me tell you
The truth is in the eyes ’cause the eyes don’t lie, amen
Remember, a smile is just a frown turned upside down my friend
So, hear me when I’m saying
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes, yeah
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
(Beware) beware of the handshake
That hides the snake (can you dig it, can you dig it?)

I’m a-tellin’ you beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy, (jealousy) misery (misery) envy (envy)
I tell you you can’t see behind
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
Hey, they don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Hey, your enemy won’t do you no harm
(Rap on) ’cause you’ll know where he’s comin’ from
Don’t let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice, I’m only tryin’ to school ya
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes

The song was recorded first by The Temptations in the same year and East Of Underground, a great Soul band who were all in the military (I just found a CD of this recording). Bobbi Humphrey recorded it in 1972 and Rare Earth on the album Ma in 1973 as did David Ruffin (ex Temptations singer 64-68) in 1974. Joan Osborne recorded it with Isaac Hayes in 2002.

A lot of the tracks on this first Undisputed Truth album (1971) had been recorded by The Temptations first as Norman Whitfield was involved with both bands. He was given the opportunity to work with his own band as producer and songwriter as The Temptations were feeling like his influence was going in the wrong direction as he spent a lot of time working on instrumental sections and payed less and less attention to the vocals in what was essentially a vocal group. The album also has a cover of Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and Aquarius, a big tune of the day. It also has great versions of Ball Of Confusion and I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

On Face To Face With The Truth (1972) the pattern was the same with Whitfield and Strong writing most of the material and the songs mostly different arrangements of songs already recorded by The Temptations. I have to say I love this music, it’s moody, soulful, funky, lyrically searching for a better world or drawing attention to injustices and then there’s love. Great performances by the cream of Motown musicians, but even though there’s a picture of the three singing members of the band, everybody is credited except them. Joe Harris, Billie Rae Calvin and Brenda Evans were recruited for the project, it was most definitely Norman Whitfield’s baby.

The third album Law Of The Land was released in 1973, it would be the last album with the original lineup with both Billie Rae Calvin and Brenda Evans leaving. Although the band was having some success, small hits and reaching the Top 20 in the R&B charts they weren’t ever able to equal the success of that first single. Frustratingly on this album they included Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone that they’d released as a single in 1972 to moderate success. Five months later the song was recorded by The Temptations with a different arrangement and it reached No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 winning two Grammy awards. I guess this was too much for Billie Rae and Brenda. The album also contains Killing Me Softly, released after the No.1 Grammy-winning Roberta Flack version. You never know what’s going to happen with a song. The lyricists were Lori Lieberman and Norman Gimbel with music by Charles Fox. Lieberman released it as a single in 1972 but it wasn’t a hit. Helen Reddy had an early demo of it on her table, she never played it because she didn’t like the title. The album also has a version of Dave Mason’s Feelin’ Alright and The Beatles’ With A Little Help From My Friends. Interestingly the versions of these songs recorded by Joe Cocker are closer to the The Undisputed Truth versions than the originals which I’m guessing were their inspiration rather than The Beatles and Dave Mason. The album ends on a cool version of Walk On By.

The last Undisputed Truth album I’ll be playing tonight is Down To Earth from 1974 (their fourth of eight), it has a new lineup. Joe Harris is still there but then Whitfield expanded the band and took the whole of Detroit group The Magic Tones (Virginia “Vee” McDonald, Tyrone “Big Ty” Douglas, Tyrone “Lil Ty” Barkley and Calvin “Dhaak” Stephenson). It’s the same kinda thing, somehow a little slicker, probably as it’s 4 years later, plus the clothes are getting more crazy. Again, with a new lineup the singers aren’t mentioned on the album cover but the musicians are even though the singers’ pictures are on the cover but not the musicians’. They can’t have been happy about that. The band was having hits, Joe Harris was there from the start and nobody remembers him from this era despite his key role in the band – or do they, how would I know?

If you like the Psychedelic Soul of The Temptations, the Funk of Funkadelic and Parliament and the groove of Sly And The Family Stone mixed together with some good old seventies R&B this is the band for you. Ooh and that bass…

Song Of The Day is Alain Delon from Noctorum’s Offer The Light (2006), a bit slick with a French film star in the lyric that only the French film buffs (and the French) know.

 

Alain Delon

If you demonize
You’ll never find the truth
If you compromise
You can’t remain aloof
It’s just suicide
To throw your life away
So close your eyes
And watch the things you say

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

At the Cinema
So many empty seats
And you’re all alone
Which makes you feel complete
And the film comes on
And it’s full of depth and wit
But there’s no-one there
Unless the film’s a hit

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

(Ooh) Never trust anyone
(Ooh) You knew that all along

The projector whirrs
The credits roll away
And as the music plays
You have so much to say
But nobody is listening to you
Because everyone’s attention is askew

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

On the street outside
You end the perfect day
When you realize
That you got your own way
You don’t waste your time
With bores or banality
And you fill your mind
With the treasures that you see

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Offer The Light (2006)