TO WHERE I AM NOW

June 21st, midsummer’s day, the longest day of the year which means it’s going to be getting darker! Hm, that’s not what we want to hear when we’ve been trapped inside for months. Sessioneer Terje from Norway way up there where the sun never sets this time of year, has sent us a great picture that he took at 00:00 with the sun at its highest for the year. Wow!

Over here in England they were threatening us with nice weather, but it proved to be empty words, we got cold, we got rain, we got wind, we got mist. So later on in the day after sessions in Sydney and Portland with Tony and Joanne and a boring football game between Liverpool and Everton, Olivia and I decided to get out of the studio, put on our winter coats, scarves and long pants and wander out as we descend into winter. Granted it’s not a cliff drop into the ice age, but this is Penzance, we could be seeing a lot of rainy clouds spotted with sunny days, but then we aren’t hanging on the beach anyway, we are more likely looking for a walk around town and a look at the sea before hunkering down in the studio with the books, the instruments, the records and the red sofa. We aren’t sun seekers or hedonists, we are more like an art school here than a hive of R’n’R decadence.

But today we were glad we got out because down there on the oceanside it was special. The sea was calm in the bay but incessant waves, small in size, came roaring into the shore, breaking with determination onto the beach, like angry children. The gulls were all sitting by the freshwater stream that runs into the great sprawling mass further towards Newlyn – they were strangely mellow, peaceful, quiet. The sea was neither blue nor was it green, more opaque and you imagined something unknown stirring below the surface. There was a hint of ominous mist that gave the whole bay the feeling of impending doom. A fishing boat was slowly returning with its catch, little lights flashing on and off as it edged its way into Newlyn harbour. On the horizon another flashing light, but the boat it was coming from was too hard to make out in the mysterious haze. The seagulls seemed to know it was best to just keep quiet in contrast to the day before where they were hanging in the air, joyriding and shrieking on the wild wind currents.

We walked down onto the beach, we couldn’t tell if the tide was coming in or going out. Beyond the pebbles and the larger stones, the sand seemed soggy which suggested that the sea was retreating, we took some photos and nearly got caught out by the occasional rogue wave that seemed stronger than the half dozen before it. It was twilight and as the invisible sun sank behind a thick belt of clouds, the atmosphere became eerie and we walked back up the beach, over the steep piles of ancient stones and sat on a bench just staring out at the sea. We watched the darkness slowly descend, small clouds of gnats hovered above our heads. On the way down swallows had been swooping like magical fighter jets feeding voraciously on these and other midsummer insects.

I love the word crepuscular which in zoology means appearing or active at twilight. Olivia taught me an English word that was also relevant today, petrichor, the smell emanating from the ground and in the air after the rain. So really who needs the noon day sun beating down, ruining your skin, demanding you pay homage when it bothers to show its face. I could never sit still long enough to just lie there and let it trespass on my body. When I see it, I think I should cover up, but then I’ve lived in Australia where the sun is unquestionably a problem, a life threatening invader, coaxing you into the frying pan with your dinner.

I had a mega French training session today on Duolingo, learned a lot, topped my gold league and now I’m into the sapphire league. The higher up the leagues you get the more serious the students are so you have to be serious if you want to compete and really do the work. On one level that’s just another incentive, competition, on the other you can just do it at your own speed, it’s like yoga, no one is watching, just doing it is the thing, there’s no winning if you don’t want the pressure, just exposure to something good that eventually seeps into your brain and makes you better at life. That’s what we all need, to get better at life.

Music today came out of the mist and I found myself with my hands on the first Black Sabbath album (1970). I wonder if parents really thought this music was evil when they first heard it blaring out of the kids’ bedroom? Imagine what Mum and Dad thought of the name, Black Sabbath, and the dastardly devilish deeds that the band members got up to as they were corrupting the children. The long hair, the mysterious album covers and that goddamn noise. My parents used to say to me, “You can’t hear the words”. If they only knew what a cuddly creature Ozzy actually was, nuts, but cuddly. It’s surprising how these albums have endured. The first album is 50 years old and people still listen to it and love it. It’s simple, it’s Ozzy’s voice and Tony Iommi’s characterful guitar. “My name is Lucifer please take my hand,” Ozzy sings. I love how the devil is polite in Sabbath songs. What the parents didn’t understand was it was all a bit of fun, like Vincent Price, Peter Cushing and Christopher Lee, horror with tomato ketchup and plastic vampire teeth. I promised myself I wouldn’t write about all the individual songs, uh oh…

On the second album Paranoid (1971) War Pigs has drummer Bill Ward and bassist Geezer Butler marauding through the speakers, anchoring Iommi’s thick riffs with Ozzy off again into Satan’s lair. It’s noise, but it’s perfect noise and Ozzy manages to make even the darkest of deals with the devil joyous, melodic, accessible. There’s no guest list for this party, everyone is welcome and to prove it the next song is the title track, and who doesn’t love that, accessible psychosis, free relief from the pain in a memorable riff and an odd drum beat. The Psychedelic Planet Caravan follows – it wouldn’t be out of place on Satanic Majesties or A Saucerful Of Secrets, or even a Tyrannosaurus Rex album. But then the Japanese Godzilla movie companion song Iron Man comes blaring out of the speakers, scary and as entertaining as an episode of Lost In Space and as cute as Will Robinson.

Side 2 opens with Electric Funeral, riffs, thick Gibsons, long-haired music, it’s like treacle. Hand Of Doom sounds like The Doors, really it does. Rat Salad steams in and there’s that timeless feel and sound that a million Metal bands got from this band, none of them as good. Fairies Wear Boots showcases Bill Ward’s perfect drumming, appropriate, clever, but not too clever, clever enough, real animal from Sesame Street stuff, mad, unpretentious, Birmingham boy unleashed, if he wasn’t doing this he’d be banging on the pipes in his mam’s house, “Yeah fairies wear boots, you gotta believe it”.

Oh that repeating cough on Sweet Leaf, the opening track on Master Of Reality (1971), what a riff and the next one, After Forever. I’m really trying not to mention every song, but the riff and Geezer Butler’s bass is great on this one. I love the way that they overdubbed solos, double-tracked the vocals, had guitars duelling with themselves, but when it came to live shows they just turned up and let go and nobody noticed. Led Zep did that too, there was never going to be a second guitarist in that band, even though the songs had rhythm guitars, riff guitars, lead guitars. Iommi and Page were going to carry the whole thing live and they did. On Into The Void, the last track, there’s that sound again, the sound that launched a thousand riffs.

Black Sabbath Volume 4 (1972) was my real introduction into the band, because I saw that tour at Liverpool Stadium in the mid-seventies. It was amazing and although I’d heard earlier albums this was the one they were touring. I remember the support bands too, Badger and Necromandus. I remember I bought a poster at the gig, it was huge, it had all three bands’ names emblazoned across it. My parents threw all my memorabilia away when I was out travelling, posters, programmes, everything, just tragic. The music lives on, the albums are still in my collection and really, without trying to mention every track from Wheels Of Confusion to Under The Sun, these songs are branded into my brain…Supernaut!! But so are The Beatles’ songs, I was blessed with not having to abandon one style for another, one era for another. I may have had phases of getting into certain things more than others, but I simply kept records in the shelf until the feeling came back again for whichever style suited the mood, it could never be just one thing. That’s why Noctorum albums are eclectic.

Song Of The Day is Volumes from In Reflection (1987), listen to that guitar sound. The ex band ended up recording this one on Remote Luxury (1984). This version is essentially the demo version as are all the songs on this album. I wonder how this album may have turned out if all the songs had been rerecorded in a proper studio and I’d actually got to replace the Sydney Morning Herald with a real snare drum.

 

Volumes

Borrowed grapes from stores of gold
Put plastic back where metal’s sold
Men in quarries connect their bomb
One two three, a new Saigon

Check the bottle, is it full?
Have you found which pin to pull?
Boys in shirts get dirty hands
Smoke kills seagulls on the sands

They have pages
They take ages
To read and to learn
They’re heavy to carry
And easy to burn
Volumes have secrets
Take them on holiday
Book them a room
Save them a moment
Swallow their swoon

Pretty things all in a row
Flowers who can’t seem to grow
Finding the pearls, then finding the blood
And finding the water is wood

The something I wanted has just flown by
It looked at me sideways and told me to try
I hope it’s a message from someone obscure
I hope it’s the man next door

They have pages
They take ages
To read and to learn
They’re heavy to carry
And easy to burn
Volumes have secrets
Take them on holiday
Book them a room
Save them a moment
Swallow their swoon

They have pages
They take ages
To read and to learn
They’re heavy to carry
And easy to burn
Volumes have secrets
Take them on holiday
Book them a room
Save them a moment
Swallow their swoon

They have pages, they take ages
To read and to learn
They’re heavy to carry
And easy to burn

(Willson-Piper)
In Reflection (1987)