TO WHERE I AM NOW

Today was the day that Noel was bringing down the eight boxes of records that once belonged to his late friend Norman Armstrong as a much-appreciated donation to the In Deep Music Archive. It sounds a little maudlin but more than one person has left their collections to the archive in their will. We are trying to preserve the music as a cultural library and the idea of a collection being split up, sold on, thrown away, or the gems cherry-picked and the rest discarded, seems rather sad. Records I already have from donated collections go into the dupes boxes and I intend to use them to swap for albums I don’t have. That’s the plan and one hopes that in a donated collection there’s different versions of albums I already have, different pressings and even better condition albums of records I already have that I can upgrade. So thank you Noel and thank you Norman wherever you are for your generosity and contributing to this amazing library of music.

My wrists are hurting from moving records around in the shelves, grabbing a pile of records and moving them somewhere else, making space. I noticed yesterday working on Ahad’s album that when I was playing some bar chords on my Fender Telecaster, the angle I needed to have my wrist was painful. I managed, my guitar playing days aren’t over yet. In fact today I was back in the studio again, Dare and I had worked till latish and Dare got too tired to carry on so we continued today to make as much progress as possible, also because Dare is about to go away for a week. So Dare did some rough mixing, some technical stuff that we mere mortals don’t understand. I played a little extra guitar and we both sang some backing vocals. It’s actually song 9 that we are up to, 4 to go with all kinds of musical bits and pieces to add to the songs we’ve already worked on. We’re making an album, we go back, we look, we add things.

I had a session with Tyler in Portland tonight. He’s another sessioneer with tons of talent, lots of ideas and has just finished with his latest self-financed project. I’ve been giving him some guidance on a project where he writes and sings and plays all the instruments. I’ll be letting everyone know about where to get it when it comes out. So many talented people out there and so difficult to get their music to an audience that would love it if they knew about it, if they had time to know about it, if they could get through the mess of the relentless bombardment of the senses.

Yesterday, I donated a measly £5 to Wikipedia. It’s an amazing resource and it’s free, it’s the least I could do and they ask for support now and again and I never get around to it. They do have a way of making you feel guilty about using the service though. When you donate they then start to ask about donating more, I suppose they have to be pushy to keep it going. It is an amazing free service and although there’s lots of room for error, you get the feeling that the basic information is about right. I think a lot of people use it and consequently, you’d think that the musicians might keep their info up to date. For example, there’s a cursory note that the Gong album has been released but nothing else, no link, no picture. If I was 1000 people I would fix every page and get all the information right so nerds like me could check out discographies, release years and any other factual information, band members, their instruments and their history. But Wikipedia isn’t just about music, it’s about the world, it’s an encyclopaedia of knowledge compiled by the people, it’s a bold project, we should be supporting it.

And yes, I did also swim today. 1PM at the pool, 50 minutes and I hit 1 mile again, 64 lengths, I really had to push to make it. I got into the water a little later, just by a couple of minutes and I finished exactly at stop time. My body feels good, better than I expected but getting into shape is like learning French, it takes time, it doesn’t happen overnight and it seems like a hell of a lot of effort for little result, you just have to remember it’s the long game, most things are. Patience, concerted effort, belief, discipline and before you know it you have the body of a 25-year-old and you’re speaking fluent French.

Music today had me craving Cream’s Disraeli Gears (November 1967). What kind of music is it? Sixties? Psychedelic? Blues? Well, it’s Sixties Psychedelic Blues, with real songs and words and excellent sounds. It opens with Strange Brew, written by Eric Clapton and the late Felix Pappalardi, lyrics by the late Gail Collins and what I realise is that this music doesn’t suffer from the chains of Blues tradition or the loose risk of Psychedelia despite its legacy and influence. Even the second track, Sunshine Of Your Love, which should be oozing safety in the Blues genre, doesn’t dominate when you put together the personalities, the talents and the visions of these three unique individuals – Eric Clapton, Jack Bruce and Ginger Baker. It’s such a great album, I recently bought a brand new copy (because it was so cheap) when I already had multiple original copies, to have a copy in pristine condition is essential. I did the same with T.Rex’ Electric Warrior.

World Of Pain swirls around like a wind (Collins’ lyrics again), Dance The Night Away features Clapton on electric 12 string and the side ends with Baker’s slightly strange Blue Condition. Side 2 opens with the amazing Tales Of Brave Ulysses and its surreal lyrics, Bruce’s voice, that Clapton wah-wah and Baker’s tom-heavy drum beat. The song was a collaboration between Australian Martin Sharp and Eric Clapton. Sharp not only wrote the lyrics to this song but was also responsible for the Disraeli Gears artwork as well as for the next double album, Wheels Of Fire.

Tales Of Brave Ulysses

(Lyrics by Martin Sharp)

You thought the leaden winter
Would bring you down forever
But you rode upon a steamer
To the violence of the sun
And the colours of the sea
Blind your eyes with trembling mermaids
And you touch the distant beaches
With tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing
For the sparkling waves are calling you
To touch their white laced lips
And you see a girl’s brown body
Dancing through the turquoise
And her footprints make you follow
Where the sky loves the sea
And when your fingers find her
She drowns you in her body
Carving deep blue ripples
In the tissues of your mind
The tiny purple fishes
Run laughing through your fingers
And you want to take her with you
To the hard land of the winter
Her name is Aphrodite
And she rides a crimson shell
You know you cannot leave her
For you touched the distant sands
With tales of brave Ulysses
How his naked ears were tortured
By the sirens sweetly singing
Yeah
The tiny purple fishes
Run laughing through your fingers
You want to take her with you
To the hard land of the winter

AllMusic’s Matthew Greenwald calls it, “One of a few overtly psychedelic songs to have aged gracefully…Lyrically, it’s a relatively factual and colourful rendering of the great Greek tragedy Ulysses”.

She Was Like A Bearded Rainbow or SWLABR is next, with lyrics by poet Pete Brown who was a lyrical collaborator with Bruce on Dance The Night Away and Take It Back and with Bruce and Clapton on Sunshine Of Your Love. Outside Woman Blues was written by Blind Joe Reynolds, despite the solos and the Blues riffs it still sounds like something beyond the genre, that’s Cream’s genius and if you want humour then final track Mother’s Lament somehow manages to justify its existence too.

Gong’s The Universe Also Collapses (2019) carries on the tradition of this bizarre group which when it formed in the sixties might have been seen as more of a lifestyle, a philosophy, rather than just a purely musical endeavour. In the wake of Daevid Allen’s (Gong guru) death in 2015, the responsibility for the world of Gong has been handed to singer-guitarist Kavus Torabi and his merry men – Fabio Golfetti on lead guitar, Dave Sturt on bass, Ian East on sax and Cheb Nettles on drums. You can see Daevid Allen smiling down on its unlikely success without him, although it was with his blessing, he knew it would work with these people. It’s Progressive Rock with a twist, spacey stories and cosmic vibes permeate the music. Olivia and I have seen them live twice and they are a cosmic inspiration. Fabio even sent us CDs of his Brazilian band Violeta de Outono, highly recommended.

Steven Wilson’s collaboration with Israeli musician Aviv Geffen began in 2004 with the Blackfield project. It’s perhaps the strongest project outside his Porcupine Tree and solo output that has now grown to five albums although his involvement has been sporadic in the middle period. It’s that classic thing he does, Progressive but with real songs, melodic, memorable, beautifully produced. If you have not yet discovered Blackfield, the first two albums are gems. Both Wilson and Geffen sing and write. Geffen is a big star in his own country (Israel), Wilson is married to an Israeli girl. This album is Blackfield II (2007), Olivia’s favourite Blackfield album – and she knows everything about Steven Wilson’s output.

Last but not least one of the great song-orientated Porcupine Tree albums, Steven Wilson’s vehicle that has catapulted him to the solo success that he now enjoys. Lightbulb Sun was released in 2000 and is packed full of catchy melodies, memorable lyrics and great sounds. Ideas galore, it’s that fine mixture of instrumental sections in songs.

The band features ex Japan keyboard player Richard Barbieri, with Colin Edwin on bass and Chris Maitland on drums. One of my favourite albums of the period.

Song Of The Daze is Cream’s Mother’s Lament, also two live performances by Blackfield and Porcupine Tree (with Gavin Harrison on drums and John Wesley on additional guitars and backing vocals):