Olivia’s dad Gerd arrived today from Germany, Cologne airport to Porto, all these amazing cities so close, but travelling means pollution, cars, planes, but what are we supposed to do, stay home? We are on a very busy polluted street, I geddit, but unless we all get horses we are doomed to choke ourselves to death. We need electric planes. Having said that, I read that in the times of horses and carriages in London the pollution from the horses defecating was so intense that they couldn’t keep up with clearing it up, spreading disease throughout the city.

Gerd came over to The Archive before he went to his hotel with some strange gifts for Olivia bequeathed in the will of her grandparents; two dangerous fifties toasters, two sixties lamps and a lovely picture of her mum when she was a girl. Olivia went with Gerd to his hotel and Sarah and I headed out to Tubitek where I had a record to pick up and others to discover. The streets were emptier than they have been, there was a breeze in the air and the sky was overcast, but it still wasn’t actually cold, it’s Porto.

At Tubitek I didn’t pick up the James Blake record I’d ordered that was waiting for me because I got sidetracked by some catalogue, namely:

Alice Cooper – Killer (1971)
Jethro Tull – Benefit (Steven Wilson remix, 1970/2013)
David Crosby – If I Could Only Remember My Name (1971)
Jeff Lynne’s ELO – From Out Of Nowhere (2019)
Ocean Child – Songs of Yoko Ono (2022)

And not catalogue, a new release getting amazing reviews (we’ll see):

Mitski – The Land Is Inhospitable And So Are We (2023)

Sarah took the opportunity to stock up on her Brazilian records collection and picked up the Captain Beefheart – Clear Spot reissue (1972) and a whole lot more already nicely packed and protected in cardboard. We nipped into the supermarket to buy some wine and have a quick coffee and a cake, it was so cheap we spent the next ten minutes discussing it. We were back to meet Olivia and Gerd at The Archive where Olivia cooked and we watched Bayern/Man U, a very weird game.

Music today has been many things (as usual) but a Patti Smith bootleg that I bought in Coimbra when we went to the Luna Festival was a fascinating listen as she talked a lot in between songs. It was live on WBCN Boston in 1976 with the full band, Lenny Kaye, Jay Dee Daugherty, Ivan Král and Richard Sohl with John Cale joining later on unhinged bass.

Patti Smith Radio Broadcast WBCN Boston (1976)
First Aid Kit – Palomino (2022)
PJ Harvey – I Inside The Old Year Dying (2023)
boygenius – The Record (2023)

Music Of The Daze