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The world is full of fascinating ideas that straddle distraction and fancy in tandem with skill and meaning. The world is full of surprises no matter how the unimaginative attempt to turn it into a dull grey monotony. It seems rather easy to wonder at the imagination and skills of Leonardo da Vinci, or the anonymous man from the Antwerp’s Mannerism school of the 16th century that painted this masterpiece. (Just marvel at the folds of their clothing.)

But what about the man who imagined topiary and then turned it into an art? Today whilst strolling through the dead streets like a dandy after the apocalypse, casually making my way to the post office to pick up a bottle of designer shampoo, I noticed that the posh street where we were walking didn’t just have private gardens across the narrow road where they stood, but some fun-loving romantic had affected the hedge with verdant sculpture. It was rudimentary but it was definitely a throne or at least a large chair with ornamentation. It was only then that the face appeared in the larger bush at its side. What kind of mind sees that hedge and imagines these things as the hedge itself doesn’t prompt.

From the Fosbury Flop to Topiary who can predict what might appear in these halls, under these rafters between the shelves of this library of potential. Topiary comes from the Latin toparius, the word for a Greek landscape gardener. The art itself is accredited to Gaius Matius and he is said to have clipped a Roman garden into these exquisite forms in the time of the assassinated Caesar. Today’s topiary might not be the world’s greatest example, but the desire to execute the art has survived for the masses as well as the elite. Go here to see what might be possible.

We found an excuse to take the half-empty recycling bags and visit the supermarket for things we didn’t need just so we could walk to the sea on this beautiful day. There were people in the water and on the scruffy town beach of grey sand, old seaweed and pebbles. But we like it anyway, it’s not a glamorous beach, but who needs glamour when you have the sea and all its profound mystery right there in front of you?

There was a ship anchored off shore with a green hull sitting still on the surface like it was glued there. We couldn’t stay long as I had a sesh with Chris in New Jersey at 6 o’clock. (Chris turned me on to mannerism in art.) Earlier I’d been speaking to Nicklas from Anekdoten and as always we talked about the world and about music. Tonight I decided to listen to the same albums as he did today and why not. Except, I didn’t have one of them Puzzle by Mandrake Memorial (1970), but his and online reviews about it were so good that I ordered it.

So, music today c/- Nicklas started with Manfred Mann’s Earth Band and Solar Fire from 1973. I’ve had this album since then and it features Bob Dylan’s Father Of Day Father Of Night as the opening track. It’s what I call a ‘warm progressive’ album. It doesn’t freak you out with weird timings or gratuitous solos (although I like gratuitous solos, just as long as they are slow). This version doesn’t have their nod to Gustav Holst’s Joybringer but you can surely hear that as a bonus track on a CD reissue.

Next came Blue Oyster Cult’s Secret Treaties (1974). It’s another record I’ve had since then and played it to death. Later on in the seventies I saw them live not in Liverpool but at Manchester Free Trade Hall. At the end they were all in a line playing guitars, jamming, it was a memorable sight and I’ve never seen a band do that before or since. The opening track is Career Of Evil with lyrics by Patti Smith who at the time was the girlfriend of keyboard player and rhythm guitarist Allen Lanier. The rest of the lyrics on the album are (unusually) written by rock critic Robert Meltzer and producer Sandy Pearlman. A must have for fans of smart guitar Rock.

Next came Welsh heroes of Progressive Psychedelia (later mixed with San Francisco’s West Coast sound), Man, with their album 2oz Of Plastic With A Little Hole In The Middle (1969). It’s a trip! In those days they were just exploring with the music, with the sounds, with the direction, jamming, listening to their favourite bands of the time and coming up with their own ideas. It was their second album and also the second album they released that year, Revelation was released in January and this album in September. Those were the days – create, play, tour, release albums, repeat. It’s another must have album.

Last but not least, Tangerine Dream’s Encore, a double live album recorded in America in 1977 and released the same year. It features Edgar Froese, Christopher Franke and Peter Baumann, the same lineup responsible for the studio albums that include Zeit (1972), Atem (1973), Phaedra (1974), Rubycon (1975), Ricochet (1975), Stratosphere (1976), and Sorcerer (1997). It’s a double live album and series of improvisations, their second live outing after Ricochet. It was also the last album with this lineup as Peter Baumann left the band. Spot Jerome on the album cover gatefold. Thanks Nicklas for today’s choices.

Song Of The Day is Travelling Through The Sea Of Sun Machines from In Reflection (1987), which exposes my early love of German music.

 

(Willson-Piper)
In Reflection (1987)

Today the sun is shining, the birds are singing and the streets are quiet, it’s like the fifties out there and this mellow, easy going invitation to peacefulness is welcome. I’m feeling better today after yesterday’s mini migraine. It’s the eye distortion that gives it away and the head feeling is always the same, but this time I felt sick all day, too. Today I awoke and sprang out of bed like an athlete. You’ve seen those high jumpers when they are running towards the bar, their stride is wide and elegant before they throw the whole weight of their body into the air like a gazelle flying backwards over the bar into the soft mattress with aerodynamic grace – that was me today, the indoor Fosbury Flop world record holder.

Out there the cats were either basking in the sun or cooling in the shade dependent on their length of lounging. As we walk the streets we see them in the windows of the houses, paws outstretched, smiling through their whiskers. There’s small dogs too, generally showing more interest in the passersby, looking for interaction, reacting, whereas the cats care little behind the glass, aloof. It was 18 degrees today and just strolling around made for a balanced pleasantness between responsibilities and relaxation.

We went to visit Joe and Vicky who were out. Joe is the mastering engineer who mastered Noctorum’s The Afterlife, Atlantaeum Flood’s One Day and MOAT’s Poison Stream and we will be sending him Space Summit this week so it’s ready for release whenever that may be. I found Vicky on the phone and it’s all been put into action so we have to make sure that the sequencing is right in the next couple of days, you can damage an album of good songs with the wrong sequencing.

Just before we came to Joe and Vicky’s house we chanced on Laura Luing who you see in today’s picture. She is a local lass who plays the autoharp and she gave us an example of her skills as we passed by the church garden in the sunlight. It’s a lovely instrument whose origins lie in the zither family. Last time I saw PJ Harvey live she played one most of the night. Dare and I sometimes use the Swedish Cittra for writing, that’s where the chords for Piccadilly Circus In The Rain came from. There is a short video here of a man playing exactly the one I have in the studio.

 
I spoke to sessioneer Paul today in New Orleans where it’s starting to get hot and was 27 degrees and humid, I was grateful not to be where he is today. But one wonders what this coming summer has in stall for us? I read today that the shops are reopening here on June 15th, but then what? The pictures from Memorial Day weekend in America showed that people were more interested in their freedom than they were in the risk of infection. It’s like they are saying, I’ve seen the alternatives, I’ll take my chances and if the vulnerable die so be it. That and the blatant flouting of the rules here in England with de Pfeffel’s arrogant nasty adviser, has people aghast. When and if the smoke clears we will see who is left standing politically, financially and physically.

Outside the supermarket today was a well to do woman telling a homeless man that god is looking down on us. To hear the ludicrous notion that this supernatural creature smiles on her in her soft comfy bed whilst he begs outside the Co-op every day. These days with cards instead of cash, if the government can’t do anything about the homeless then they should issue all homeless people a contactless people card reader so they can at least receive alms. What a world we live in – haves and have-nots and how hard it seems to recover people who are down on their luck. Perhaps the main problem is that you can work hard and still be down on your luck, there’s not a lot of incentive to get back into the work force. The estimate of homeless people in London is 180,000, approximately 1 in 50. How can the government not address this before it addresses high speed trains?

Music today has been Groundhog Day. Groundhogs were one of the most authentic and original British Blues bands, but despite their energy, high quality songs and playing they never seemed to reach the heights they deserved. Led by Tony McPhee on guitar and vocals, with Pete Cruickshank on bass and Ken Pustelnik on drums, they were a power trio extraordinaire. They made two albums in 1970, Thank Christ For The Bomb and Split and if you haven’t heard Cherry Red, Track 1, Side 2 of Split, you still have time before the next bombardment of radio fodder. (Although admittedly I can dig some radio fodder now and again, ha ha.)

In 1975 Keef Hartley made a one off album as Dog Soldier. Miller Anderson who had played guitar, sung and written songs with Hartley on his earlier solo albums was there. Anderson’s resumé is so long and interesting that I’m linking to an interview with him here.

The band also featured Paul Bliss who has led a life in the background, but had success as a composer for Olivia Newton-John, Sheena Eastern and Uriah Heep (strange mixture) and if anyone remembers the Star Fleet theme covered by Brian May, well Paul Bliss wrote it. As a keyboard player he played with the Moody Blues and The Hollies. He made two albums as The Bliss Band, the second album Neon Smiles (1979) featured That’s The Way That It Is, a song covered by Uriah Heep and somehow a hit in the UK (from Abominog released in 1982, the first album without Ken Hensley, where they tried to modernize their sound – that explains it I guess). Neon Smiles is catchy, middle of the road and musos who were obviously living in a bubble with the record labels of the time, confused by Punk Rock. It was everything Punk was against.

Hartley had played with John Mayall and made albums afterwards as band leader with Anderson singing and playing guitar. Hartley and Anderson played at Woodstock and seem to be the only band that played there that hadn’t been released on audio or video till 2019, apparently it’s now available, but I’m not sure where. Hartley was Ringo Starr’s replacement in Rory Storm and The Hurricanes when Ringo left to join The Beatles. Hartley and guitarist Derek Griffiths (also in Dog Soldier) both played in Ronnie Wood’s brother’s band The Artwoods.

Dog Soldier is a very different era to The Bliss Band despite being only four years apart. With Dog Soldier just as you like something, you don’t like something else. One might ask why bother with records like these? (Especially The Bliss Band which is true melodic schmaltz). Well, good question, but sometimes if you can be objective you find a real gem that everyone else wrote off. But this is why the new generation has to take the baton, you can blame The Bliss Band for creating Punk, but also remember that some people like this music, who are we to judge?

Last but not least my Mum went to see Keef Hartley Big Band in Liverpool thinking it was a Swing band, she got a terrible shock. I wonder what she thought sitting in the audience waiting for the band to come on? I wonder what the audience thought of my Mum and her friend? Ha ha.

Song Of The Day is High Down Below from Nightjar, because there’s something accessible about it but nobody noticed.

 

High Down Below

All this aching pain
Is it all in vein
You said the coldness came
Down below

And your perfect shield
And the words you wield
From your empty field
Where nothing grows

All of these visions that go through your head
For all of their beauty they’ll wind you up dead

That’s why you’ll find me high
You’ll find me high
You’ll find me high down below
You’ll find me high

Take the veil away
On your knees and pray
You’re in disarray
The future’s closed

So if you’re feeling numb
And if you do your sums
You’ll see the past has come
And you’re exposed

I tried to write a melody that you’d recognize
Just to draw attention to and open up your eyes

(Willson-Piper)
Nightjar (2008)

The alarm on my phone is set for three rings, 1) To shake me out of a deep sleep, 2) A ten minutes later ring to stop me falling back to sleep and 3) Five minutes after that as a reality check, as a proverbial boot out of bed – Get up! But I’ve realized that if you need to get up for an appointment, leaving it to the last minute isn’t necessarily the best policy as it does actually take time to recover from sleeping. You’d think it was the other way ‘round. You sleep to recover from the day, but that’s not how it is for everyone. Have you ever noticed how people wake up at different speeds? Some people jump out of bed like athletes, others sloth like. Some people can’t speak, others can’t focus. Some are unsteady on their feet and some, even when they’re standing by the bed, still have their eyes closed. Some need tea, some have to wee, some need light, some need the radio on, some can’t function till they’ve cleaned their teeth, getting up is a very individual thing.

Today I woke up with the feeling of a large anvil pressing down on my head. Not a headache on the inside but a heavy weight pushing me down and making it generally difficult for my body’s revival – unresponsive limbs, my fingers stiff, eyelids like closed metal shutters – like recovering from stasis. Dragging myself like a wounded soldier from the pillow, to the floor, to the kettle, to the muesli – I found last night’s T-shirt and tried to determine the black front from the black back in the black room. Every action was a huge effort and by the time I got to my computer for the day’s first session with Tony in Sydney, I felt sick. I looked down at the screen and it was as if I was looking at it through some kind of lens that bent the image. I managed to get to the Skype page and send Tony a message, “I need half an hour before we can speak”. So I just sat there with a half-eaten bowl of muesli, a cup of tea and a can of coke. I’d taken two aspirin but my body wasn’t having it. “You’re sick today”, it told me. I closed my eyes and tried to snooze it off and in that half hour my vision became clearer, but my stomach felt sickly and I could feel that creeping dull uncomfortable haze in my head.

I called Tony, apologized for the delay and we chatted and discussed his project. For me, sitting and waiting to feel better doesn’t work. Time goes quicker when you are doing something and after that terrible history of migraines that I explained in an early essay, this was nothing. My sessioneers are so cool and evolving and learning and growing in confidence and all so clever that it’s an honour to be involved with them, I wasn’t going to let this stop me engaging. I had a little break between Tony in Sydney and Rajan in Brooklyn, but I wasn’t getting any better. But Rajan like Tony is a cool dude so we discussed his project and as with Tony, how to remove all the horrible people up onto the moon. By the time I was done I sat on the couch and listened to Wish You Were Here really quietly with Olivia making me a cup of tea and the perfect food for this kind of affliction – beans on toast. I ate it, lovingly and then drifted off till it was time for Brian in Minneapolis, but as I went to call I saw an email saying he couldn’t make it, so I switched Wish You Were Here for Tubular Bells and quietly listened and closed my eyes.

It was soon dinner time and Olivia cooked spaghetti, I finished off an already open jar of pesto that wasn’t quite enough for the pasta, but it not being so rich was probably good. We watched the last episode of After Life, I knew it was going to be sad so we watched it before an episode of the original Star Trek and my sesh with Doug in Wappingers Falls (near Woodstock). My idea was that After Life into Star Trek might be better than Star Trek into After Life on a scale of sadness. It didn’t really work out because as it happened the episode of Star Trek was pretty lame. It was the episode where a space ship had visited this planet before and inadvertently contaminated the society by making them aware of space travel when they were still in a more primitive phase of their evolution. They’d left behind a book that told of the Chicago gangster stories from the ’20s and ’30s and they used it as their bible and to shape their society. The concept, interesting, how it unfolded, lame.

By the time I came to Doug I was feeling better, not 100% but better and now as I sit here typing, listening to David Sylvian, I feel like the only cure will be another attempt at sleeping and waking.

Music today due to how I felt physically has been CD only and why not, I have lots of CDs in the archive to listen to. Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here (1975) is my go to I feel sick CD. I put it on very quietly and let it float, it always works, it’s calming without being bland.

As I was on this planet and had time for one more I picked Mike Oldfield’s Tubular Bells (1973), so perfectly familiar and with the same affect as The Floyd.

After Doug I put on another very familiar CD, David Sylvian’s Gone To Earth (1986). If you ever buy a CD of this album, make sure you get the double disc (2003). There’s a single disc version that doesn’t have all the tracks that are on the double vinyl, omitting four of the instrumentals. Who made that decision to cut tracks to make it a single CD on an album like this? So short-sighted, penny pinching, cheap attitude to the art. It’s another charming and warm album with three extra remixes and Sylvian’s special voice with special guests that include Bill Nelson and Robert Fripp. Disc 1 is vocal, Disc 2 instrumental. A must have.

Last but not least tonight it seemed like a good opportunity to listen to the mellow sounds of The Penguin Cafe Orchestra and their third album, Broadcasting From Home (1984). Sadly mainman Simon Jeffes died of a brain tumour in 1997 aged 48. What are they like? This from Wikipedia:

“The Penguin Cafe Orchestra (PCO) was an avant-pop band led by English guitarist Simon Jeffes. Co-founded with cellist Helen Liebmann, it toured extensively during the 1980s and 1990s. The band’s sound is not easily categorized, having elements of exuberant folk music and a minimalist aesthetic occasionally reminiscent of composers such as Philip Glass.”

Song Of The Day is the mellow Wondering from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000). It features an improvised lyric with Sister Patti Hood on the harp (who saw The Beatles – twice – in the USA in the sixties!).

 

Wondering

Well I want to tell you
Things I’ve seen
I never knew you then
I think about the things you did
I wish that I knew when
But I want to think about you now
I never left you long
Though the things you said you did
Don’t fit into this song

I’m wondering if I’ll ever see you
Wondering if I can
Wondering if I’ll ever see you
I think I will I can

Cause I’m wondering, wondering out loud
Wondering, wondering out loud

Sometimes when I think about you
Lying on your own
I still think I’m gonna love you
Gonna take you home
I still think things about you
I know I haven’t seen
Perhaps these things will come and tell me
What I really mean

But I think about you every morning
Even when you’re gone
I think about you and your heart
And think about how long

And I’m wondering, wondering out loud
Wondering, wondering out loud

But I think about you every morning
Even when you’re gone
I think about you and your heart
And think about how long

I’ll be wondering, wondering out loud
Wondering, wondering out loud

(Willson-Piper)
Hanging Out In Heaven (2000)

Some years ago I was walking down Camden High Street along with all the cool kids, trendies, Indie wannabes, fashion victims, tourists and hipsters (although they weren’t called that yet). I was on my way to Camden Market, when I chanced upon two young police officers, a boy and a girl, walking casually down the road. The boy had a practiced stroll, walking with his hands clasped behind his back despite his age (I thought only Prince Charles did this?). Behind me and ahead of them there was a white van parked on a double yellow line, probably a trader attempting to unload his wares, when I heard the young police boy say to the young police girl “Should we nick ‘im?”. He said it in something of a ‘cartoon copper accent’ and I thought to myself, do these people really talk to each other like this? Apparently they do and it’s not like they were veterans. The reason I thought of this was because I was sitting in the archive today and I heard a male outside the window admonishing a female for nearly getting him ‘nicked over the crack!’. It made me realize something about that old cliche ‘it takes a thief to catch a thief’. It doesn’t matter what side of the law you are on, you need to speak the same language. I wonder what cops and robbers learn from each other? Is it knowing how to fool each other? But then they’d know.

In the days of cassettes, pre CD and post vinyl, Camden was the place to go at the weekend to get a bootleg of your favourite band, literally the day after they played in London. They often had red inners and some text (generally wrong), but they’d been recorded at the show surreptitiously the night before and one presumes multiple copies were made later at home. If it was Friday or Saturday a busy weekend market day was likely with keen fans looking for rarities. The reason I know they were there so soon after the show is because I went up there the night after playing at the Town And Country Club in Kentish Town and there was a cassette of the night before’s performance on sale. I remember that there was a picture of me on the cover extracted from a promo pic of the band. I bought it, I can’t remember how much it cost, maybe £3, actually I don’t remember, but I do have other similar boots, one of Suzanne Vega, one of The Waterboys. I guess someone was making a living out of this, but honestly bootlegs of my music never bothered me because the only people that ever wanted them were die-hards who bought everything else legitimately. Let ‘em have it.

Tangent: Talking of Let Him Have it. Did you ever see that film with Christopher Eccleston? It was based on a true story. This from Wikipedia:

Derek Bentley (Eccleston) is an illiterate, epileptic young adult with developmental disabilities who falls into a gang led by a younger teenager named Christopher Craig (Paul Reynolds). During the course of the robbery of a warehouse in Croydon, in which Bentley is encouraged to participate by Craig, the two become trapped by the police. Officers order Craig to put down his gun. Bentley, who by this time has already been arrested, shouts “Let him have it, Chris” – whether he means the phrase literally (“Let him have the gun”) or figuratively (“Open fire!”) is unclear. Craig fires, killing one officer and wounding another. Because he is a minor, Craig is given a prison sentence for the crime. Meanwhile, Bentley is sentenced to death under the English common law principle of joint enterprise, on the basis that his statement to Craig was an instigation to shoot. Bentley’s family makes an effort for clemency which reaches Parliament. However, the Home Secretary (who has the power to commute the death sentence) declines to intervene. Despite his family’s efforts and some public support, Bentley is executed in 1953 within a month of being convicted, before Parliament takes any official action.

Today I walked into the supermarket and as I went through the door I noticed that the social distancing awareness notice said ‘please keep 2 metres apart’ and then in brackets ‘6 feet’. I am 62 and although I’ve lived in Sweden and have a German wife, I think in feet and inches because that’s what we were brought up with. I always thought it was rather humorous to say to Olivia, “I love every centimetre of you” instead of “I love every inch of you”. The metric system has been a point of contention with Europe for years. There’s an amusing article about the British reluctance to go metric here.

On the subject of social distancing and measurement, Olivia’s Dad told us today that the German recommendation has been reduced from 2 metres to 1.5 meters. Those crazy specific Germans. 1.5 metres in the Imperial measurement is 4.92126 feet. Dear British residents, as we see a decline in Covid-19 casualties, we recommend that social distancing gets closer and instead of being 6 feet apart you should now be 4.92126 apart.

Music today has continued into weirdo land with Port Of Suez, lots of crazy ouds and percussion with mad violinists playing weird Arabic scales. It’s worth it just for the album cover.

Then off to Andy Votel’s label of esoteric content, Finders Keepers. “The Sound Of Wonder!” – The first wave of plugged-in pop at the Pakistani picture house. It’s a double album of bonkers music from Pakistan, recorded for film soundtracks for films made in ‘Lollywood’ between 1973 – 1980. For those of you that don’t know, Bollywood is so called because the film industry in India was based in Bombay, well in Pakistan it was based in Lahore, hence the name. The other day I mentioned Hollywood and Dollywood, well there’s even another one, based in Nigeria, you got it, Nollywood.

All this amazing music from exotic countries with odd instrumentation and odd rhythms and inscrutable lyrics makes you just want to listen to Germany’s Scorpions. When the Scorpions first formed their songs were more instrumental than vocal and their first album Lonesome Crow (1972) is one of the great German Rock albums. It’s generally avoided because of what they became musically as well as the leather and spandex image, but if you like great guitar tones and Rock music this is for you. It features not only main man and brother Rudolph but also a 16 year old Michael Schenker. It’s most like an early seventies Deep Purple album with less vocals. It’s also produced by Conny Plank, a reason in itself to listen.

Their second album was Fly To The Rainbow (1974). Michael Schenker had left to join UFO and in losing him they had to regroup with a new version of the band. Uli Roth (lead guitar), Jürgen Rosenthal (drums) and Francis Buchholz (bass) had all been members of Dawn Road and they simply combined bands to create Scorpions 2 with Rudolph Schenker on rhythm guitar and Klaus Meine on vocals. What happened to original drummer Wolfgang Dziony and bassist Lothar Heimberg? They went on to use 6 different drummers and 4 different bass players over their recorded history. For this album the band had left more experimental label Brain and signed to RCA. They recorded their first album in Hamburg, close to Hannover where they were from, but with the new label they were sent to the expensive Musicland studios in Munich for a more traditional guitar and Rock vocal album although at this stage despite his Rock voice, Meine had not as yet been the exclusive Scorpions vocalist, sharing lead vocal with Schenker and Roth.

Roth commented on the Fly To The Rainbow album cover by calling it “ludicrous”. Scorpions went on to have at least 4 controversial album covers in the coming years, but that’s for another day. They went on to sell millions of records but as is often the case with Hard Rock bands that find fame, they start great and slowly get worse and worse.

Song Of The Day is Spark from Live At The Knitting Factory in New York. A show that was accidentally recorded on a steam-powered cassette player in 1988. Wow, I haven’t heard this in 20 years.

 

Spark

I’m saturated
Wet with your tears
You spill so easily
In reflection I’ll see you again
Approach me, soak me
Faith, faith, breathe!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark!

I’m interested
You’ve always been a subject
That I could learn
Splendid hills, unconquerable mountains
Climb, don’t ever turn back
Seed, seed, grow!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark!

I’m saturated
Wet with your tears
You spill so easily
In reflection I’ll see you again
Approach me, soak me
Faith, faith, breathe!

‘Cause it’s here, it’s where the air is clear
Where far off things could be quite near
No repairs are needed
Just a spark

As today was a day of no sessions and no studio I got to work on organizing the archive which means moving things from one place to another so as to fit more things in that don’t fit. You would think that I would be listening to music whilst doing this, but I decided that after getting into the second series of Ricky Gervais’ After Life I would listen to some interviews and see what he had to say about the world. There were two YouTube videos, one was with Richard Dawkins, the other with Russell Brand. I’ve always liked these three figures simply because they are smart, you don’t have to agree with them, but like Stephen Fry, another commentator I like, they’re all intelligent. Their opinions are unpopular with a large amount of people, but then again I never thought the masses was the place to go for perspective.

You’d think that this first paragraph was the prequel to my opinions on atheism, agnosticism, liberalism, the world that comes up in every day conversation, discussion, debate. But actually no, because sadly I think it’s pretty hard to change someone’s mind if they don’t want it changed. We generally don’t go looking for opposing opinion, we look for confirmation that what we believe is true. So I don’t really need to listen to Rick 1, Rick 2, Russ and Stevie, because I’m on their team and I’m not sure that I like the look of the other teams (although we can always learn a lot from the opposition). So, in my world, I check in with how my team is thinking now and again just to make sure they are on track and I get on with my own thing, which is – building the archive, teaching people how to make music, producing music, writing music, writing lyrics, writing here, discovering music from different corners of the musical universe, reading, seeing great films from all over the world, trying to improve my language skills, staying healthy and then outside of the house and the studio, playing live. Then the last two would be the most important – being aware and acting on what I’ve learned and of course loving (and being nice to animals).That’s my agenda and my contribution to the universe. I try and do what I’m good at and let the plumbers and the diplomats fix the world’s leaks, although there’s nothing worse than a dodgy plumber.

I learn things every day, isn’t that incredible? Every day another piece of interesting information. You must of course make sure the information is true before you file it away as such. It doesn’t always have to be fact, it can be an idea. Today I learnt that in the 1940s in India the soundtracks for films were recorded in parks after midnight because the studios often had tin roofs that rattled and there were no separate recording rooms. At night the parks were quiet, the perfect place for the job. Can you imagine being there at that time? I also learned the Indonesian word for honey is ‘madu’.

We learn about ourselves as time goes by from the instruction we get on how to live and how we make sense of it. You just have to remember that if parents are your teachers you’d better make sure they are qualified, the same with government. Luckily in the free world we can disagree and carry on, imagine if that weren’t true. One fact I learned from listening to Ricky Gervais today is that there’s 13 countries in the world were atheism is punishable by death, this from The Atlantic:

“Afghanistan, Iran, Malaysia, Maldives, Mauritania, Nigeria, Pakistan, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, United Arab Emirates and Yemen. With the exception of Pakistan, those countries all allow for capital punishment against apostasy, i.e., the renunciation of a particular religion. Pakistan, meanwhile, imposes the death penalty for blasphemy, which can obviously include disbelief in God.”

We are so lucky even when things are a mess, there’s often a bigger mess somewhere else. Sometimes the persecuted escape to the west and then are persecuted here for being from where they were persecuted. At this point being aware is all I can offer. I suppose we should all think a little harder, just a few minutes of assessment a day and try and make the world a better place. I think Ricky Gervais does that through his awareness, and I’m sure it’s no shock to learn he’s a serious man.

With Richard Dawkins:

 
With Russell Brand:

 
Music today went on a wonderful journey around the world. I have some Odeon, India, albums (Odeon is the label, a branch of EMI). They are soundtracks to movies and as you know the Indian movie industry is huge – there’s Hollywood, there’s Dollywood and there’s Bollywood.

I would be typing for years should I try to break down and research this subject. I know little about it but always enjoy it when I see it, that is the spectacle. The dancing, the colours, the productions. Occasionally an Indian movie gets noticed around the world, the last one was Slumdog Millionaire, there was also Salaam Bombay, but Bollywood proper is an Indian phenomena and hardly infiltrates outside the Indian culture. The two records I played today are two classics, very famous in India, Pakeeza (pure) from 1972 starring Meera Kumari with music by Ghulam Mohammed and Naushad Ali (17 years in the making) and Mughal-E-Azam (The Great Mughal) from 1960 with music by Naushad. Different lyricists on Pakeeza, but on The Great Mughal it’s Shakeel Badatuni (I won’t be following the words), but I will be inspired by the music, the melodies, the singing, the musicians. The latter is a historical drama and unrequited love affair, India’s biggest box office hit, an accolade that it held for 15 years. Pakeeza deals with the love affair of a Nautch Girl (courtesan and dancer). Both films have the repeating storyline in Indian films of lovers who are not allowed to be together (protests in the family usually). To think that these brilliant singers and musicians are so unknown to us.

Zoila Augusta Emperatriz Chávarri del Castillo also known as Yma Sumac was a Peruvian coloratura soprano, which is to do with ornamentation of a melody, they say she could sing five octaves. She was the queen of Exotica in the late fifties. She will blow your mind, she makes Nina Hagen sound like Ian Brown. She was allegedly descended from the last Incan emperor. Voice Of The Xtabay was her debut album, released in 1950.

There was some Jazz tonight, John Coltrane’s first album as band leader released in 1957 on the Prestige label. He’d been fired from Miles Davis’ famous quintet for his drug use. One of the most famous Sax players (he played Tenor, Alto and Soprano). He died in 1967 of liver cancer at the age of 40. Paul Chambers, the double bass player died at 33, these guys knew how to kill themselves. The other Jazz name you might know if you don’t know Jazz is Charlie Parker. He was mainly an Alto Sax player, highly influential in the evolution of Bebop, he died age 34 in 1955. I don’t pretend to know a lot about Jazz, but sometimes I put it on and I like it, that’s enough I suppose.

There was time in the eighties when everyone was talking about Le Mystère des Voix Bulgares (1986). The hip label 4AD had re-released the album after main man Ivo Watts-Russell had been given a dodgy quality cassette by Peter Murphy. This from Wikipedia:

“The album was the result of fifteen years of work by Swiss ethnomusicologist and producer Marcel Cellier and was released in 1975 on his small Disques Cellier label. Some of the recordings he made himself; others were taken from the archives of Radio Sofia.”

The record was on everyone’s coffee table, Kate Bush hired the Trio Bulgarka who had appeared on ‘Volume 2’ (1988) for both The Sensual World (1989) and The Red Shoes (1993). It was something of a World Music Classic, there are now four volumes. Prepare yourself for the incredible tones of this choir of Bulgarian women and their unforgettable Folk Music.

Last record tonight was the African “World Psychedelic Classics 3, Love’s A Real Thing, The Funky Fuzzy Sounds Of West Africa”, put together by David Byrne and Yale Evelev. This is a great record (ha ha, aren’t they all). You can hear where Talking Heads came from when you listen to this. It was a fantastic musical and philosophical journey tonight and it’s going to be a late one trying to get all these records back in the shelves.

Song Of The Day is The Afterlife (obviously). I’ll leave you to make your own conclusions about the lyric.

 

The Afterlife

Divine is the temple of light
What a sight, the afterlife
A tale of devotion and fire
Suicide for the afterlife

And I think that we agree
On what I should do for you
It’s not a sacrifice or a helpless plea
I do it out of love for you

Watch my spirit rise to the sky
As my body splits and my flesh divides
And it’s all for you, it’s all for you

And afterwards when I claim my prize
Of seventy virgins in paradise
I’m told they wait for you

Now is the time of your life
What a life, in the afterlife

Everyday I look to the sky
And I’ll tell you why, it’s for the afterlife

I’m gonna cure all the world of its sin
I’m gonna purify and fight till we win
I’ll be at the gates of heaven when he comes to let me in
And I’ve never been more sure that I’m doing the right thing

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – The Afterlife (2019)