TO WHERE I AM NOW

I stepped out of the submarine, leaving the looming silhouette of the conning tower and slid down the chute to the blizzard’s mouth. I slipped between the teeth into the throat and slid down into the ice belly where a dilapidated sign hanging by a woven slither of rusty wire kept it clanging against the rib cage. Written on the sign in old Norse was “sommaren” and an arrow. I thought I heard a brass band playing and there under the heart was a bandstand that I recognised. It was Morrab Gardens in Penzance. I knew I was there because the wind was howling, sheets of rain were being blown sideways by strong gusts and the town was full of tourists who were trying their best to keep a brave face after choosing the dark mouth of the winter monster for their vacation and their desperate escape from the virus. Up in the sky, I could see the submarine resting on the clouds and thought about the fields of roses that lay inside. I climbed the ladder leaning against the back of the tongue, the steps were slippy and planted with wasp stings that were hard to avoid, I could see my fingers start to balloon as they were pierced which took me off the steps as I floated out of the gaping mouth and back to the waiting vessel. Inside everything was yellow and turquoise with splashes of vibrant red, I closed my eyes and awoke into a new spring.

Dare and I were in the studio today continuing our work on Ahad’s album. I was breaking out the guitars, all Fenders today, Strat, Tele and Jazz, and working on ideas and translating Ahad’s demos into reality. Listening to pre-written riffs adding intertwining new riffs to complement the ones already written, finding complementary parts, exploring dynamics and arriving at choruses with a bang. I used a Fuzz Box (G.B. Fuzz) that I found in my road case 30 years ago, I saw it on eBay for £500, how is that possible? It did sound really good but it’s hard to sell the idea of the importance of real equipment against the digital choices available for a fraction of the price but with a fraction of the meaning. McDonald’s should release a multi-effects rack, there would definitely be a market for it. As far as computer recording, we’re stuck with it and every brilliant thing about it, but what makes it better is at least keeping the equipment authentic around it and using the digital as a compliment not as a given.

I also got to clean some more records today, the record cleaning machine hoovering 50 years of dirt out of the grooves. I was fantasising today about who actually owned these records originally. Who owned Aretha Now on Atlantic from 1968? Who bought it brand new somewhere in America, played it to death, loved it but eventually sold it or gave it away or threw it away. Imagine if you could trace the owners through the grooves. I’d like to give some of them a talking to about the condition that the records are in. I wonder why people could never look after their records when they ended up jumping and clicking and became a competition of noise between the music and the bottle of orange juice someone spilt on them or the dirt from the carpet, or the banging into the stereo or the careless lifting the needle off the player and scratching it across the record, gouging a ditch across a beautiful song.

On the subject of destruction can you imagine the art objects destroyed over the centuries? Paintings burned, manuscripts lost, statues, buildings and what about Pete Townshend’s Rickenbackers? Destruction of art and science, destruction of nature, it seems easier to see this planet as a place of anger and destruction than of development and understanding or the appreciation of beauty and respect for humanity itself. The aliens are so sad but they just can’t risk moving here because they know there will be a faction that will persecute them and their alien families, their alien children and their alien pets. If black people have to suffer so much because of the colour of their skin or gay people because of who they fall in love with can you imagine what a tri-sexual four-armed oversensitive black and yellow striped alien would have to endure? They are staying away on the happy planets where the twin moons send out songs and the multi-race society isn’t seen as a Utopia but as the obvious normal way to live.

Music today has seen Lucinda Williams reappear in the CD player with her new album Good Souls Better Angels. Another great record from her with her perceptive lyrics that always seem to expose raw truth. Bad News Blues is great as she notes that bad news are everywhere you look and follows it with a scathing attack on Blimpo on Man Without A Soul, although nowhere does she mention his name. Her songs always sound like she is going through something, has been through something or is recognising that someone is going through something. She straddles an odd ground between Rock, Country and Blues but is none of the above. Whoever is playing guitar with her always has a fantastic sound, this time it’s Stuart Mathis, great tone, great parts. Then there’s her voice, she sounds like she’s been up drinking all night but is still seeing things clearly as she slurs out reality. I have all of her albums and I’m never disappointed. Good Souls Better Angels is another classic from her, essential.

Always a fan of Alice In Chains and the late Layne Staley’s brilliant voice, next to the red couch is A-B in the archive’s CDs and I saw their Unplugged album, live from The Majestic Theater in Brooklyn 1996. Not a band that is generally associated with acoustic performance, they made this and two amazing EPs, Sap and Jar Of Flies that showed another side, not acoustic exactly but mostly and not the sound they are associated with either. I love a band that’s slow, slow like Dave Gilmour, slow like Paul Kossoff, slow like Alice In Chains. They seemed to be unhip beyond the realms of reason but I suppose the sensitive soul never liked a growl and saw them as dirgy metal, the grunge that you were allowed to hate when you couldn’t hate Nirvana. But to me, they had incredible dark melodies and even more incredible dark harmonies shared with guitarist Jerry Cantrell. Staley could conjure up the devil and for those of you that know about him, he did, dying of a heroin and cocaine overdose at the age of 34. They entwine the tangled roots of ancient trees with fresh leaves, they are melodic and find those melodies in unlikely chord progressions. If you are scared of them or doubt their talent, their songwriting skills or their schtick, perhaps start here and see if you can gravitate towards their electric material.

Songs Of The Daze:

Lucinda Williams – Tiny Desk Concert July 2020, songs from the new album Good Souls Better Angels:

“Fools and thieves and clowns and hypocrites,
Gluttony and greed, and that ain’t the worst of it.”

Set List:
Bad News Blues
Big Black train
You Can’t Rule Me
Man Without A Soul

You’re a man without truth
A man of greed, a man of hate
A man of envy and doubt
You’re a man without a soul
All the money in the world
Will never fill that hole
You’re a man bought and sold
You’re a man without a soul
You bring nothing good to this world
Beyond a web of cheating and stealing
You hide behind your wall of lies
But it’s coming down
Yeah, it’s coming down
You’re a man without shame
Without dignity and grace
No way to save face
You’re a man without a soul
How do you think this story ends?
It’s not a matter of how
It’s just a matter of when
‘Cause it’s coming down
Yeah, it’s coming down
There’s a darkness all around you
To cover all you’re hiding
There’s no light in your eyes
You’re a man without a soul
Now the exits will be closing
A sad life will be…

MUSICIANS
Lucinda Williams – vocals, guitar
Stuart Mathis – guitar

Lucinda Williams – Live On KEXP Seattle 2015 supporting her then latest album Down Where The Spirit Meets The Bone

Set List:
East Side Of Town
West Memphis
Protection
It’s Gonna Rain

Alice in Chains from Unplugged – Live at the Majestic Theater in Brooklyn 1996 with the late Layne Staley on vocals, Jerry Cantrell on guitar and vocals, Mike Inez on bass and Sean Kinney on drums with Scott Olson on guitar.

Listen to the whole concert here.