I’ve become an exotic fruit freak and in the last few days in an effort to get even more natural food inside me beyond Olivia’s cauliflower soups, broccoli soups, Asian spectacles, and roasted potatoes, I’ve been eating either mango or papaya for breakfast. So yesterday, we specifically went to the legendary, psychedelic, multi-coloured, magic supermarket to buy mangoes (and water). On the way, I took lots of pictures, was abducted by alien squids and survived a freezing winter on the other side of the wardrobe. (You have to have read yesterday’s blog.) By the time we arrived at the golden gates of Lidl and entered through the glowing, diamond-encrusted doorway beyond the drawbridge all plans had been forgotten and we managed to fill our platinum Maserati with three heavy bags of various otherworldly wonders. We were able to take the photo with the elephant and the sixties sign on the last supermarket days’ return trips but otherwise loaded down with eclectic morsels we went straight home. It was then that I realised that we forgot what we went there for – we were ‘mango free’.

So today ‘mango free’, we just went back and bought more water and four mangoes. It was an excuse to get out on a 60/16 degree day. We went to the other supermarket first, Pingo Doce, which is not related to the Pingu animation but means Sweet Drop. There was a long queue outside and Olivia was specifically after enticing queijadas so she had to go there to get them. I told her I’d see her at the glorious palace that is Lidl when she was done as they were both closing soon. As I got there she was right behind me, she’d decided not to wait. I didn’t know she was catching me up and as she didn’t have her phone she couldn’t call me and tell me to turn around to see her. But she did tell me as she saw me ahead that I have an unusual gait, I lurch from side to side like a forties Hollywood character actor up to no good in Cairo. This time we got the mangoes, we got the water, there was no queue and we were out of there before you could say “The Gilded Palace Of Sin by The Flying Burrito Brothers”.

On the way back I had clocked the perfect place for a photo – outside the office of the local plastic surgeon. I think that this is actually plastic surgeon’s row, I seem to remember seeing at least one more close by. I’m not sure why I noticed the sign, I was just following my nose. (Sorry.) Seriously though, it’s on the way to the shop. It seems to be in a nondescript building and I have the feeling that if I were going to get plastic surgery that I’d want it to be in some super space-age, luxurious, golden, reflecting glass, pyramid-shaped skyscraper, not in an apartment building up some steps close to Lidl.

By the time we’d arrived at home, Olivia discovered she still had time to get to Pingo before it closed and they put the penguins out for the night. She made it but unfortunately, they were all out of queijadas so she came back with 98 mini chocolate mousses instead. The manufacturers had decided that people who eat chocolate mousse need them in very small individually sealed plastic tubs rather than one medium-sized tub or larger. It seems odd because there’s nothing more more-ish than a chocolate mousse. Maybe that’s the point? It’s like gambling, you have to know when to stop.

The clocks changed in the US today so I had to hire a mathematician to figure out what time my sesh with Doug was. After that, Arktik Lake Tony and I had an interview with Katherine in New York at the American Songwriter website. Tony had sent her the EP cold and she listened and liked it so much that she wanted to interview us and get the story. We also had to tell her about our new spelling, all those other names were taken, so we’ve gone back to the original with a different spelling to avoid confusion with the mega-streamed Arctic Lake. All our other ideas seemed to be taken, Arctic Seed, Arctic Sun – we didn’t try You Too.

Music today has been a slightly mixed bag but not really. Starting with La Düsseldorf’s second album, Viva (1976). Who doesn’t dig Side 2 and Cha Cha 2000? The band featured ex-Neu! man Klaus Dinger of Motorik drumbeat fame. Although in La Düsseldorf he also sang, played guitar and keyboards. His brother Thomas played percussion and keyboards and sang and was with Klaus on Neu! ’75 as was drummer Hans Lampe. Harald Konietzko played the bass and Andreas Schell piano. Both the brothers are no longer with us.

After that, it was Van der Graaf Generator’s The Aerosol Grey Machine (1969) which I have on my iPod but doesn’t seem to be on Spotify. A progressive classic with Peter Hammill’s magnificent singing and vision. Hugh Banton on keys, Guy Evans on drums, and Keith Ellis on bass who later found himself in Juicy Lucy, briefly in Boxer with the late Ollie Halsall and Mike Patto, and a later incarnation of Iron Butterfly with whom he died whilst on tour in Germany in 1978. Oddly this album had a track called Giant Squid (replaced by Necromancer) although the title appeared on early versions of the cover art and reappeared as an extra track later – pure coincidence with yesterday’s blog.

Next was CAN’s Landed (1975) featuring the song Hunters and Collectors if you were ever wondering where they got their name. Followed by Soon Over Babaluma (1974). It was about then that I saw them in Liverpool at The Stadium – a lifelong fan ever since. In 2018 our friend Brigitte Handley from the Australian Goths The Dark Shadows and I went to the cemetery in Cologne where she lives (not the cemetery) and visited bassist and tape manipulator Holger Czukay and drummer Jaki Liebezeit’s graves who both died in 2017. Guitarist Michael Karoli died in 2001. Only keyboard player Irmin Schmidt is still with us.

You can see a video of our visit filmed by friend Mathias and Olivia if you go here:

 

Music Of The Daze