I walked into the dimly-lit square as the clock tower struck five. It was twilight and it was the time between lunch and dinner so Cafe Pereira’s outdoor tables lay empty. Even the late afternooners had left their spot as they saw the light begin to fade. The chiming of the clock revealed an eerie atmosphere as the rush hour traffic was building up, brake lights and headlights lighting up Rua Santa Catarina and the Marquês square as the calm of late afternoon turned into people and machines trying to get home. The sky had turned cobalt blue and the moon sat like a faint pencil drawing before disappearing to another part of the sky. I walked into the cafe/bakery to pick up some pães da avó (grandma’s bread rolls). I’m always welcomed in there by the staff, “Tudo bem?” (All well?). Fist bump by one of the staff and an exchange of smiles and hellos with the others. People are nice here.

I went to the computer shop and talked to Hélder about getting a small microphone for my cassette player and ask him about where I could get a replacement battery for my antique iPhone – it’s a 5c, made in 1849. He directed me to a website for the mic and to a phone shop two doors down, they’re going to replace the battery tomorrow, 25€ for the battery and doing the replacement – result. 100% to 1% in about half an hour isn’t a good sign. So sometimes this is the day, small things, normal things but there’s always something underlying that you can’t move, something important that’s out of your control – in my case most pressingly it’s the archive. We’re still waiting for progress, two days into this week and nothing from the removal company and then suddenly a response after Olivia prompted them. A bizarre question, is there a deadline? Oh my, so frustrating.

Hot news today from the Jammerzine website as we made their best indie albums of 2021 with Space Summit’s Life This Way. Thank you to everyone involved for supporting us in the making and the release and the purchase of this record and also thanks to those of you who have purchased the vinyl version and are waiting patiently for it to arrive in lieu of the pressing plant hold-ups. It will eventually come next year, we just have to hope that Adele, Coldplay, Ed Sheeran, Beyonce, Taylor Swift, Rihanna, AC/DC or every hip hop artist don’t release any more records.

On the subject of projects, Brix and I got another glowing review today for Lost Angeles, this time on The Midlands Rocks website. It’s nice to know that we are penetrating the deepest darkest centre of England.

Music today has been Jobriath’s first album, released in 1973. He was famous for being the first openly gay musician signed to a major label and for having a massive publicity campaign that didn’t work. But he was good, sometimes written off as a Bowie clone, Morrissey recorded his song Morning Starship on his recent covers album California Son (2018). Jobriath was glam space cabaret and although original copies of his two albums are hard to find – self-titled (1973) and Creatures Of The Street (1974), the music is available on the streaming sites. I foolishly didn’t grab the As The River Flows album, unreleased tracks, released in 2014, I even had it in my hands, but I do have an original copy of the album he made with Pidgeon (1969) as lead singer and guitarist. Sadly Jobriath died of AIDS in 1983 aged 36.

Music Of The Daze