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I walked out of the studio today to go pick up my lunch and took three paces into the street before I turned back for my trusty LFC umbrella and then I remembered it’s summer in Cornwall. Outside between the studio door and the alleyway that leads up to Rowe’s the bakers there were two lads in their twenties standing talking getting wet but they didn’t seem to be too bothered. By the time I’d nipped back in for my umbrella they were gone. But on the right of the door was another youngish fellow, just standing there leaning against the wall with a cup of take away coffee. He was getting very wet, not sheltering from the rain at all and he was still there when I went back for my umbrella. I suppose some people love the rain, I do too, but not when I’m getting soaked, the rain is lovely from inside the house, staring out of the window. I love swimming when it’s raining either in a pool or in the sea. After Rowe’s I went to the greengrocers and plucked two rain-covered broccoli crowns from the outside display. They were a deep green and looked so much healthier than they ever do in the supermarket. Why would we have sacrificed these small businesses with their high quality wares for rotten and inferior versions wrapped in plastic with an inconsequential price difference. Humans are insane, convenience for its own sake as if the effort to lift that extra finger isn’t worth the rise in quality. I listen to music on a STEREO, it’s wonderful!

I had three sessions today, Noelle in Montreal, Chris in New Jersey and Craig in Atlanta. All three of them are making great progress with the songs. It’s a lesson to everybody that you just have to do it, put in the time and you’ll get results. It’s the same with my French lessons, if I stick with it I will know something! Ha ha, hopefully that something will be a lot. There’s also the idea that your brain is a muscle and it needs exercise. That’s why it’s good to write. In between seshes today I had a few minutes to peruse some YouTube vids and for all of you that might like the debate between atheists and believers, even if you don’t want to watch the whole thing, listen to the incredible opening arguments from Christopher Hitchens which start at 3:45 and end at 19:30. That’s as far as I got. I’ll be watching the rest later, remember it is a debate, there’s always the other side of the story. That’s civilization, clearly and succinctly presenting your case without emotion and shaking hands when you disagree (well not anymore).

 
Dare came in the studio today to upload more Ahad demos for an album that we will begin in earnest next Tuesday when our drummer Ed arrives from Bristol. Yesterday we approved the final mastering of the Space Summit album. The artwork is still being worked on but with another album finished we need to start thinking about when this and the new MOAT album will come out and yet it’s hard to know. We will release a song from Poison Stream (MOAT) in a few weeks in preparation for a release campaign. But in reality we are still waiting to see where the world is at with the pandemic. We see an opening up in the street outside, in the cities and yet at the same time we hear of new outbreaks and fears of a new spreading into the population as people once again start to encounter each other in public places. In China they are closing down again, in Brazil it’s got really bad and there are growing cases in lots of states in America but Tulsa seems to be going ahead – with a disclaimer! If you die you do so at your own risk. Nice, encouraging.

Olivia is practicing the violin next door and it’s comforting to hear the dulcet tones of her instrument playing plaintive melodies over a solo piano supplied by the internet. She is playing Gymnopedie Nr. 1 by Erik Satie and Salut d’Amour by Edward Elgar (both 1888). I was wondering today about the enduring quality of today’s sounds. The future decides what survives and slips into legend. Here in the archive I sit with a collection full of both timeless classics that have endured and forgotten classics that will rarely be brought out and played, it’s hard to know the worth of something beyond personal taste. It seems that the only guaranteed survivors are the classical composers, their future has proved that or has it? When will the funding of orchestras be added to the list of unnecessary costs? Jimi Hendrix never dies but who listens to Glenn Miller anymore? Will Jimi Hendrix and The Beatles be as famous as Mozart is 229 years after his death? Imagine this, a man and a woman are driving down the Pacific Coast Highway in their automatic hoverjet on holiday listening to Drive My Car by The Beatles written in 1965. The year is 2194, if it works for Mozart, why not for The Beatles? It’s 2202 and after hearing The Beatles this futuristic couple decide to listen to a famous record from 1973, The Dark Side Of The Moon by Pink Floyd. Of course now the dark side of the moon is a bustling metropolis, there’s even a famous night club there with that very name populated by alien travellers and exotic dancers. Have I been watching too much Star Trek?

For music today I had a burning desire for Roxy Music’s first record (1972) before Bry got too slick, Eno got famous and the makeup and fake leopard skin was rife. Bob Harris famously introduced Roxy Music on England’s premier music show (OGWT) as a band he didn’t like. I’m not sure why, perhaps he saw them as pastiche with their theatre but musically they explored fascinating areas. Ferry’s vocal was unique, but perhaps that was seen by Bob as too affected. Even the straightforward Re-Make/Re-Model is weird, and the weird Ladytron is surprisingly straightforward. There’s just so many ideas and no fear of tradition or experimentation. They were part Glam, part Rock, part Punk and part Electronic and on If There Is Something Ferry’s warble was even a challenge to Family’s Roger Chapman. Add in Andy Mackay’s effected oboe and saxophone, Eno’s treatments (and backing vocal), Paul Thompson’s meaty drumming with Phil Manzanera’s unorthodox guitar with founder member Graham Simpson’s moving bass and not forgetting Ferry’s piano, and you have one unique band full of magic. Dear Bob, what happened? Side 1 ends with 2HB (To Humphrey Bogart), some faded Hollywood nostalgia appears here in the vocal but musically it’s reminiscent of where Eno might go on his solo albums. I always thought 2HB was about a pencil.

Side 2 starts with that eerie electronic pulse, The Bob (medley) is an odd one, it’s the Battle Of Britain and comes complete with the sound of, well, battle. It then flows into a very weird reedy Gong or Hawkwind type instrumental section, Andy Mackay wailing and then into a pastoral piano piece, before returning to the noise of the verse and then onto a bombastic end. Weird. The beautiful Brief Encounter, inspired again by a moody British film from 1945 about a pre-war love affair. Next is Chance Meeting filled out with a whole track of perfect Manzanera feedback with piano and bass as a support pulse. Simpson finally taking a melodic stroll.

Would You Believe? is almost 10cc’s Donna and surely IS pastiche as it then goes to The Hop with Dany And The Juniors. If this song had been in the Rocky Horror Show you wouldn’t have blinked. There was something oddly fifties in the great Glam bands, Mott The Hoople also had it and other bands of the day subscribed to it, Showaddywaddy anybody, Mud?

On the beautiful and evocative Sea Breezes, Mackay again makes all the difference with the oboe, so atmospheric, perfect above the calm of the electric piano. It’s almost Middle Eastern and that with the straight ahead guitar noodling it creates an incongruous perfection. And then the song changes with the oddest drum part and bass and feedback madness fading in and out and unnervingly rumbling underneath the angular direction the track has unexpectedly taken – and then it reverts back to quiet.

The short Bitters End might have been based on a vocal influence from the thirties and the song is rather an indecipherable nod to nothing seventies and might be more at home with Noel Coward.

By Roxy Music’s second album For Your Pleasure (1973) Eno was about to invent a world that only a theorist could inhabit. One foot in lipstick, another in intellectual pursuit. Finding commercialism in minimalism, he was imagination wrapped in satin. He left Roxy Music soon after For Your Pleasure was completed and made four fantastic vocal albums between 1974 and 1977 – Here Come The Warm Jets (1974), Taking Tiger Mountain By Strategy (1974), Another Green World (1975), and Before And After Science (1977), as well as the minimal Discreet Music (1975). But in 1974 he joined Kevin Ayers, John Cale and Nico and a whole lot of cool musicians (The Soporifics) for the June 1st 1974 live concert at London’s Rainbow Theatre. He opens the album with stirring versions of Driving Me Backwards and Baby’s On Fire from Here Come The Warm Jets.

John Cale is next doing a bracing ‘modern’ version of Heartbreak Hotel followed by Nico and her pump organ singing The Doors’ The End. Oh my that voice, but what happened to the release of the other tracks by these three artists? Wikipedia says “Other songs that were performed but did not make the LP include Ayers’ I’ve Got A Hard-On For You Baby (with Cale on backing vocals), Cale’s Buffalo Ballet and Gun, and Nico’s Janitor Of Lunacy and her rendition of Das Lied Der Deutschen. One track from the concert was added to a Nico CD reissue.

Side 2 is all Kevin Ayers – the great Kevin Ayers. I stood next to him once at the urinal backstage at a Go-Betweens concert in London at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire and had a talk with him (there and backstage). I have all his albums, love, love, love. Oh and I say it again, that voice. We covered Decadence from Bananamour (1973) with the ex band on the Box Of Birds album (1999). He opens the side with May I? followed by Shouting In A Bucket, Stranger In Blue Suede Shoes which features collaborator Ollie Halsall on lead guitar. Rabbit is on organ, Archie Leggatt on bass, Eddie Sparrow on drums and Robert Wyatt on percussion. This is the lineup for most of the tracks although Mike Oldfield joins for lead guitar on Everybody’s Sometime And Some People’s All The Time Blues, and Eno and John Cale guest on Two Goes Into Four. Mike Oldfield had released Tubular Bells a year earlier and was riding on that album’s massive success, but he was here because before that he had played in Ayers’ band The Whole World.

John Cale’s Fear (1974) is one of my all time favourite albums. The opening track Fear Is A Man’s Best Friend ends in frenzy before the beautiful second track Buffalo Ballet. There’s something about the Art Rock of 1974 before Punk had happened that is some of my favourite music. Barracuda comes next with Phil Manzanera doing his unorthodox thang again on guitar. On Emily, Irene and Doreen Chanter sing backing vocals with Liza Strike. They were all over records in this era, the go-to backing singers. This song again beautiful with synthesizer tropical wave sounds. The melodic Ships Of Fools ends Side 1 of this most poetic album.

Gun opens Side 2, Phil Manzanera going nuts again on the guitar, Archie Leggatt on bass and Fred Smith on drums with the deepest snare you ever heard. It’s not Fred Smith the bassist from Television, it’s not Fred Sonic Smith guitarist from MC5 and Patti Smith’s partner for many years. It’s Fred Smith the drummer! That could have been quite a band if they’d decided to play together, but what would they have been called?

The very odd The Man Who Couldn’t Afford To Orgy comes with its tongue firmly in its cheek to lighten you up and with special guest Judy Nylon and then another lovely song in You Know More Than I Know with Irene and Doreen and Liza. The last track Momma Scuba seems to have lots of guitar players and a different lineup. Manzanera is still there but there’s appearances by Richard Thompson and Bryn Haworth. It’s The Winkies’ Brian Turrington on bass and Michael Des Maris on drums. What’s great about this album is its beauty and its edge and somewhere in there Eno also appears.

In 1974 Nico released The End, what a year it was, John Cale plays and produces, Phil Manzanera and Eno are there, too, fantastic instrumentation, perfect. It’s a mystery how Nick Cave became so popular when Nico was only ever a cult. She does everything he does but without the showbiz, there’s your answer. It’s also the era we are in, the whole world is changing all the time and like the wheel of fortune your number comes up, Nick got lucky. Rather Nick than…well you know who they are. The End is a wonderful album, the atmosphere Nico creates, and guess what, I’m going to say it again, oh that voice! All the songs bar The End are written by Nico. She plays harmonium and takes you under the sleeve of her ancestors’ shawl, leads you into the dark forest, even the mist parts to let her by. In her eyes the darkness overpowers the daylight, birds fall out of the sky, she takes you without explanation to a place you don’t want to see. When you arrive she laughs and scares the giant trees, the mountains outside the forest shudder in her presence. It’s as if she has inherited the eternal sadness of the ages.

I saw Nico live twice in Stockholm in the eighties, amazing, unforgettable. This is the track listing from The End, because I simply cannot decide which songs to single out on this amazing album.

SIDE 1
It Has Not Taken Long
Secret Side
You Forget to Answer
Innocent and Vain
Valley of the Kings

SIDE 2
We’ve Got the Gold
The End
Das Lied der Deutschen

Song Of The Day is Where The Rainstorm Ends from Seeing Stars, because there is always The End.

 

Where The Rainstorm Ends

Say you’re gonna be there
At the rainstorm’s end
Say you’re gonna be there
At the rainstorm’s end
I know change

Say you’re gonna be there
At the rainbow’s end
Say you’re gonna be there
At the rainbow’s end
I know change

Say you’re gonna meet me
Don’t be late
Say you’re gonna meet me
Don’t be late
I know change

Say you want to meet me
At the rainstorm’s end
Say you want to meet me
At the rainstorm’s end
I know change

(Willson-Piper / Cousin / Price)
Seeing Stars – Seeing Stars (1997)

As Olivia posted a lovely message yesterday I thought that if she did get sick of me she could approach the company advertised on the side of the van in the photo. Tangent, the behaviour of birds has had me marvelling at the sparrow. Although we should never take any animal for granted, like the seagulls we see everyday here in Penzance or the pigeons we see in every town, we should spare some extra love for the sparrows. There’s been a drop in their numbers, in the seventies there were approximately 12 million pairs, now there are 6-7 million pairs in the UK. The urban and the rural sparrow has declined more than the suburban sparrow. I guess there’s humans that don’t fancy the city or the country either and feel much more at home in the suburbs.

There’s the house sparrow and the tree sparrow and I’m not sure which one I’ve been seeing, but I’ve noticed some odd behaviour. Twice recently I’ve seen a sparrow flying up against a wall as if it thinks it has a nest there and it’s just got the wrong building? I remember a couple of different occasions where I wasn’t where I thought I was. I’ve even found myself standing outside the door of my hotel room and wondering why my key card doesn’t match up with the old-fashioned key lock door I’m standing outside. What’s more amazing is that I got to the hotel, into the foyer and onto that floor without recognizing that I was in the wrong building. Ha ha. That’s being on the road. But back to sparrows, have you ever passed a sparrow bush? The noise!!!

I’m in a new league with my French lessons, the ‘Gold League’, the competition is getting more serious and the grammar and the vocabulary is getting tougher. It’s all good, it’s just remembering it. All you can do is just keep on banging it into your head. I wonder, can we learn anything? Do we just have to do it and do it and that’s the secret? Giving up might mean you don’t like it or you’re not good at it but if you do like it, you have to stick with it, otherwise you will end up sticking with something that you end up doing instead of what you wanted.

I was talking to some of the locals today starting with Lisa and Doreen at Rowe’s, the bakers, I got there so late the door was locked, but they had saved me a pasty and told me to come in and pay tomorrow, that’s what makes a community, trust. As the shops were open today I thought at last my belt can be fixed, but the roller doors were still down, the damn shop is closed on Mondays! Olivia and I met a whole lot of people in the street today, local strangers. There were the two ladies who were chatting in a doorway, opposite on the roof was a massive chick and a seagull shrieking. The chick was a chimney or two away and seemed unconcerned that Mama seagull was crying for her/him. The lady in the doorway said, sometimes they fall off the roof and the parent seagull swoops in attack if you go and try to help. These chicks grow so quickly, it’s almost science fiction.

Another local’s house we often pass seems to always have a man ‘standing’ in his front garden reading, I guess it’s a cigarette break – and so he must smoke a lot. Today he was reading a Stephen King book, Dream Catcher. I said, “I hope it has a happy ending” and he said, “Yes, another book to read”. Another man was scraping the paint off his front door, “Big job” I said, “Yes, I wish I’d never started” he said. There was a lady sitting on a bench with her dog, the dog looked like it had a hairdo which I mentioned to the lady, she commented that she might get her hair done the same way. Small talk and exchanging the time of day is underrated.

Later it started raining and Olivia and I had to get from Dare’s house to the studio. I put a towel over my head but Olivia just got wet. We went to the post office to pick up a record and on the way to the studio we ran into Jess who lives around the corner from the studio. She was going surfing, she teaches surfing, we’re talking about swapping skills, I’ll teach her some lead guitar and she’ll teach me to surf. After all that time in Australia you’d think I would already know how to surf. Plus it would have been much warmer, I’m not sure learning to surf off the coast of the UK without owning a wetsuit would be much fun. Lead guitar is so much warmer.

Music today has been directed by the arrival of Puzzle by Mandrake Memorial. The album, their third, was released in 1969 and is something of a lost classic. I was turned on to it by Nicklas from Anekdoten, always a reliable source for a mad and interesting record. Hailing from Philadelphia, it’s hard to know where to put this one except to say it’s both experimental sonically, Psychedelic sixties, has melodic singing, jams, orchestras and no fear. You gotta have it. There’s surprisingly a lot of information about them on Wikipedia.

Brian Davison was the drummer in The Nice with Keith Emerson, Lee Jackson and Davy O’List. When The Nice broke up he formed Every Which Way with Graham Bell, the former singer of Skip Bifferty. They made one album released in 1970 on Charisma records (Mercury in the US). The songs are mostly written by Bell and it is a moody, jazzy Progressive gem. It features Geoffrey Peach on reeds and flutes. With John Hedley on guitar and Alan Cartwright on bass. Hedley played with The John Lewis Big Band in the sixties and later with Carol Grimes’ band. Hedley also played with Sting in Last Exit, Sting’s band before The Police. Cartwright played with Procol Harum from 1972 to 1975 starting with the live album with The Edmonton Symphony Orchestra (1972), Grand Hotel (1973), Exotic Birds And Fruit (1974), and Procol’s Ninth (1975).

After Every Which Way Davison joined Refugee with The Nice bassist/vocalist Lee Jackson who had formed his own band after The Nice, Jackson Heights. Swiss whizz kid keyboard player Patrick Moraz was asked to join but they decided on a new band with Davison as the drummer. Refugee were a classic Progressive keyboard-heavy band that showcased Moraz’ virtuoso playing. (Moraz was apparently born on a plane!). He left Refugee to join Yes and played on Relayer (1974), then Wakeman came back for Going For The One (1977). He joined The Moody Blues for Long Distance Voyager (1981) and stayed for nine albums. There’s also solo albums and albums with Bill Bruford to find, I have some of them in the archive but not all of them – yet, ha ha.

After Every Which Way Graham Bell joined Bell & Arc with his old Skip Bifferty band mates and made one album but soon left to make a solo album. The album features drummer Ian Wallace who played with King Crimson and Bob Dylan, Mel Collin on sax who also played with King Crimson and a million others. Tim Hinkley played keys, another long list of famous appearances including his own band, Jody Grind. Bell moved to the States in the late seventies and played with Long John Baldry. Bell was wiped out by Punk and New Wave. He might have had a little more success if Punk had hit a little later. His bluesy voice and his musical style was no longer the sound of the day and he hadn’t got successful enough to sustain a career as a solo artist. He was good, just bad timing. He later played with Snowy White on return to England. Both Brian Davison and Graham Bell died in 2008.

Song Of The Day is Sanctuary from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000), because that’s what we needed from the rain.

 

Sanctuary

After the party with wine in your hair
There’s a shot in the dark
So you’ll fall in despair
And you’ve chipped your tooth
So you whistle when you speak
And there’s tunes in your head
Till the end of the week

The feast in your hair is up to a swing
But whoever you touch
You don’t feel anything
So you brush off the cobwebs
That seal you up
To get past the part
With the crack in your cup

Farewell Saturday, love tomorrow
Always the next day
For to find sanctuary
For there’s unkept promises
Crimes and jealousies
Always the next day
For to find sanctuary

Then a slice of the silence
Remains on the bed
As the hue of the sun
Whispers heat to the dead
And the glow won’t wash off
When you’re already gone
And you lock all the doors
Where the silence just shone

A sip of green poison that jades your blood
Till the blue of your veins
Turns as brown as the mud
The continental shift in your
Earthquake heart
It isn’t a cure
But at least it’s a start

Farewell Saturday, love tomorrow
Always the next day
For to find sanctuary
For there’s unkept promises
Crimes and jealousies
Always the next day
For to find sanctuary

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

Early rising for me means before midday, early to bed means 4AM. It’s a different scale, the hours are the same, I just like to think, work, create, enjoy everything later. There’s something about the still of the night. So today was early rise for a sesh with Tony in Sydney who has been working on recording his songs with members of legendary Australian band Tamam Shud. Then straight after, a sesh with Rajan in Brooklyn. It’s wonderful going for a trip around the world on a Sunday morning before you even get out onto the streets of Penzance. Around 4PM we went to see the arrows. Yellow arrows have been painted along all the pavements in town. In Penzance there is an elevated pavement on one side of the main street which has little steps to the road every few feet. Some of these have No Entry signs. Some wag has painted arrows going in circles and added another arrowhead to confuse people as to which way to go, but in a different yellow paint and it’s a scrappy job. All I know is that tomorrow on the first day of the shops being allowed to open, there’s going to be trouble.

There were two men in the queue ahead of us in the supermarket today. They were both bald with beards, both had T-shirts, shorts and sneakers, but they didn’t notice each other. I thought that’s interesting because if I saw someone that was wearing the same clothes and had the same look as me I’d notice, wouldn’t I? If two aliens walked into the supermarket they’d notice each other, wouldn’t they? Maybe these days there’s a generic look and people don’t notice each other if they look the same. Having thought this through for 10 seconds I realize that society makes people look like each other and that’s normal.

After we’d been directed by the arrows to walk in circles on an empty pre-opening deserted Sunday street, we headed down the hill to the harbour where we sat and gazed at the boats bobbing up and down on a middle tide, not in or out. The sun was warm when it could get through the clouds and it was chilly sitting there when it was behind the clouds. I was looking up through my sunglasses, my eyes penetrating the white fluffy bundles trying to see if they were moving past the yellow ball and into the scattered blue sections of sky. But the clouds were not just white, there were also black clouds and when the sun got trapped behind those there wasn’t even a glow. Still, after about 10 minutes the sun broke through and I felt the warmth on my arms. That burning ball in the sky is our life source and to think that one day it will burn out. Well, by then we’ll all be living on Utopian ‘thought planets’ as floating consciousness, wondering what it was like to have a body or a similar pair of shorts to one of your species.

French today was interesting, getting a little trickier, but I’m top of my Duolingo league which doesn’t actually mean that I’m better than anyone else, it just means that I’m initially keener and put more time in. I’m enjoying it and the thought of actually being able to watch a French movie in French with no subtitles is exciting to me, ask me about that in 2025. The league means that they take a random selection of 50 subscribers (it’s free) and the top ten with the most collected ‘credits’ go up to the next league (I’m in the Silver league at the moment). The bottom 5 go back down to the Bronze league. So they are creating competition for those that see it that way. But it’s like yoga, you just operate at your own speed and level of understanding.

Joe the masterer dropped around today with the mastered and sequenced version of the new Space Summit album. That’s one of my tasks tomorrow, listen to it and approve it. Then comes the plan; the release, the cover art, making the world out there aware of this great new album (as well as the great new MOAT album). They’re all so great! Ha ha. Well I hope that when you get to hear these two (quite different) records you will agree. In the meantime we continue working on the next project in the studio (Ahad’s record) and wonder how we can find our way to play shows in a future where the pandemic still lingers like the Sword of Damocles over our heads. For now we’ll just be following the yellow arrows In Circles (and I’ll be announcing something about that song soon).

Music today comes from an underrated, little talked about band from the Motown stable, The Undisputed Truth. They were put together by Temptations producer Norman Whitfield as a vehicle for his Psychedelic Soul experiments. Their first album was released in 1971 and had a hit song, Smiling Faces Sometimes, that made it to No.3 on the Billboard chart. They were released on the Gordy label (Berry Gordy was the Motown main man). The song was written by Norman Whitfield and Barrett Strong as were most of The Undisputed Truth songs. Here’s the lyric (in those days they would smile when they lied, these days they don’t even bother to hide it):

Smiling faces sometimes
Pretend to be your friend
Smiling faces show no traces
Of the evil that lurks within (can you dig it?)
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Oh, oh, yeah

Let me tell you
The truth is in the eyes ’cause the eyes don’t lie, amen
Remember, a smile is just a frown turned upside down my friend
So, hear me when I’m saying
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes, yeah
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
(Beware) beware of the handshake
That hides the snake (can you dig it, can you dig it?)

I’m a-tellin’ you beware of the pat on the back
It just might hold you back
Jealousy, (jealousy) misery (misery) envy (envy)
I tell you you can’t see behind
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
Hey, they don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Hey, your enemy won’t do you no harm
(Rap on) ’cause you’ll know where he’s comin’ from
Don’t let the handshake and the smile fool ya
Take my advice, I’m only tryin’ to school ya
Smiling faces, smiling faces, sometimes
They don’t tell the truth
Smiling faces, smiling faces tell lies and I got proof
Smiling faces, smiling faces sometimes

The song was recorded first by The Temptations in the same year and East Of Underground, a great Soul band who were all in the military (I just found a CD of this recording). Bobbi Humphrey recorded it in 1972 and Rare Earth on the album Ma in 1973 as did David Ruffin (ex Temptations singer 64-68) in 1974. Joan Osborne recorded it with Isaac Hayes in 2002.

A lot of the tracks on this first Undisputed Truth album (1971) had been recorded by The Temptations first as Norman Whitfield was involved with both bands. He was given the opportunity to work with his own band as producer and songwriter as The Temptations were feeling like his influence was going in the wrong direction as he spent a lot of time working on instrumental sections and payed less and less attention to the vocals in what was essentially a vocal group. The album also has a cover of Dylan’s Like A Rolling Stone and Aquarius, a big tune of the day. It also has great versions of Ball Of Confusion and I Heard It Through The Grapevine.

On Face To Face With The Truth (1972) the pattern was the same with Whitfield and Strong writing most of the material and the songs mostly different arrangements of songs already recorded by The Temptations. I have to say I love this music, it’s moody, soulful, funky, lyrically searching for a better world or drawing attention to injustices and then there’s love. Great performances by the cream of Motown musicians, but even though there’s a picture of the three singing members of the band, everybody is credited except them. Joe Harris, Billie Rae Calvin and Brenda Evans were recruited for the project, it was most definitely Norman Whitfield’s baby.

The third album Law Of The Land was released in 1973, it would be the last album with the original lineup with both Billie Rae Calvin and Brenda Evans leaving. Although the band was having some success, small hits and reaching the Top 20 in the R&B charts they weren’t ever able to equal the success of that first single. Frustratingly on this album they included Papa Was A Rollin’ Stone that they’d released as a single in 1972 to moderate success. Five months later the song was recorded by The Temptations with a different arrangement and it reached No.1 on the Billboard Hot 100 winning two Grammy awards. I guess this was too much for Billie Rae and Brenda. The album also contains Killing Me Softly, released after the No.1 Grammy-winning Roberta Flack version. You never know what’s going to happen with a song. The lyricists were Lori Lieberman and Norman Gimbel with music by Charles Fox. Lieberman released it as a single in 1972 but it wasn’t a hit. Helen Reddy had an early demo of it on her table, she never played it because she didn’t like the title. The album also has a version of Dave Mason’s Feelin’ Alright and The Beatles’ With A Little Help From My Friends. Interestingly the versions of these songs recorded by Joe Cocker are closer to the The Undisputed Truth versions than the originals which I’m guessing were their inspiration rather than The Beatles and Dave Mason. The album ends on a cool version of Walk On By.

The last Undisputed Truth album I’ll be playing tonight is Down To Earth from 1974 (their fourth of eight), it has a new lineup. Joe Harris is still there but then Whitfield expanded the band and took the whole of Detroit group The Magic Tones (Virginia “Vee” McDonald, Tyrone “Big Ty” Douglas, Tyrone “Lil Ty” Barkley and Calvin “Dhaak” Stephenson). It’s the same kinda thing, somehow a little slicker, probably as it’s 4 years later, plus the clothes are getting more crazy. Again, with a new lineup the singers aren’t mentioned on the album cover but the musicians are even though the singers’ pictures are on the cover but not the musicians’. They can’t have been happy about that. The band was having hits, Joe Harris was there from the start and nobody remembers him from this era despite his key role in the band – or do they, how would I know?

If you like the Psychedelic Soul of The Temptations, the Funk of Funkadelic and Parliament and the groove of Sly And The Family Stone mixed together with some good old seventies R&B this is the band for you. Ooh and that bass…

Song Of The Day is Alain Delon from Noctorum’s Offer The Light (2006), a bit slick with a French film star in the lyric that only the French film buffs (and the French) know.

 

Alain Delon

If you demonize
You’ll never find the truth
If you compromise
You can’t remain aloof
It’s just suicide
To throw your life away
So close your eyes
And watch the things you say

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

At the Cinema
So many empty seats
And you’re all alone
Which makes you feel complete
And the film comes on
And it’s full of depth and wit
But there’s no-one there
Unless the film’s a hit

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

(Ooh) Never trust anyone
(Ooh) You knew that all along

The projector whirrs
The credits roll away
And as the music plays
You have so much to say
But nobody is listening to you
Because everyone’s attention is askew

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

On the street outside
You end the perfect day
When you realize
That you got your own way
You don’t waste your time
With bores or banality
And you fill your mind
With the treasures that you see

Alain Delon
Never feels lonely
Alain Delon
Nobody knows me

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Offer The Light (2006)

Today’s trip to the shoreline was something of a small nature trip. On the way the sky couldn’t make its mind up, the gardens were recovering from early rain, the sun was appearing and disappearing, the wind too was unsure. We found another pathway through, one that we hadn’t taken before which seemed impossible in such a small place. It wasn’t a direct route or a shortcut, it was like entering a grotto. It was a winding path with a roof of leaves that made it dark and mysterious. We went in and found ourselves in another world and because it was Morrab Gardens in Penzance, there were exotic plants (you can see in today’s pic that I was standing between those exotic plants that begin with the letter ‘E’ – Echium Pininana?), there was even bamboo all around us. It was fleeting, we were soon out of the hidden pathway and heading briefly through the gardens towards the sea.

A deep dark translucent green hypnotized and lured us towards it. We walked along the road and peered through the erected fence behind where they are attempting to replace the promenade paving. The pandemic has halted work and only recently have they started up again. It’s stopped us walking the length of the promenade next to the sea which has added to the frustration. There’s little spots where they have left gaps so you can get to the sea wall and look out towards the horizon and at another place descend the weathered stone steps to the beach. It was so enticing we did just that. The waves were coming in thick and fast and we walked right up to the water’s edge and stood there for ages taking it all in. Olivia spotted a small crab doing its sideways dance attempting to disappear into the water, after 3 or 4 waves it was gone.

All of a sudden a fish appeared on a wave, it was dead and it was quite small, about 4 inches long. It had lost its tail and its mouth was open with large round eyes staring. But it seemed like it hadn’t been dead long perhaps attacked by a predator, a seagull or a diving bird. It was bright silver and lying there on the stones it shone like a beacon. You’d think creatures like this would have better camouflage. I took a small piece of seaweed and picked it up and took it towards where the seagulls drink the flowing freshwater from the stream that flows across the beach from the hills. I left it near there on the stones and as we walked away a bird soon found it and carried it off. An unexpected feast, better than chips or ice cream. Olivia did some research, these gulls are European Herring Gulls, the ones with the black wings are Great Black-Backed Gulls. It makes it even better knowing the species, knowing about the animals around you improves the experience of them.

We were also as always dropping off recycling, again it was too full so we were happy we didn’t have too much. We went into the supermarket and bought a few supplies, honey, carrots, brie, sweet potato, and headed back into town. On the way back we found ourselves facing the same mad woman that abused us a few weeks earlier. We humorously gave her a very wide berth although I’m not sure she or her two yappy dogs appreciated the sentiment. We ambled up the hill and witnessed the local cat population. Sometimes there’s one on every corner or asleep in the window of a house on the way up to the studio. In the building next door to the studio (where Dylan Thomas was married) there’s a dog that always sits in the window checking out the action. There was an excitable dog on the beach today. It was one of those dogs with an enthusiastic face, all tongue and droopy ears.

I had no seshes today and no studio so the plan was to catch up with emails, put records away, write down the records played in the last few days. Also listen to Tony’s and Rajan’s songs in preparation for Sunday’s seshes. But by the time we’d been out, had dinner, watched an episode of Star Trek and I’d done my French lesson it was already late. Which reminds me, today’s episode of Star Trek I acted out on stage in Dublin. It was the episode where the inhabitants of the planet are moving so fast that you can’t see them. It wasn’t them that I impersonated, it was the slow motion Enterprise crew, it was pretty easy, I just stood very still for 30 seconds, seemed like an eternity for the audience, ha ha.

Music today comes from another unique musical genius from England, the unforgettable Peter Hammill. In between two groundbreaking Van der Graaf Generator albums, The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other (1970) and Pawn Hearts (1971), Peter Hammill released Fool’s Mate (1971) as a solo album. He described them as older songs and they needed a home. They were also shorter pieces than the VDGG material so he nipped into the studio and recorded the album in two days, you’d never know it. The album features all VDGG members plus Robert Fripp on electric guitar. There’s also two members of Charisma Records label mates Lindisfarne, Rod Clements on bass and violin and Ray Jackson on harp and mandolin. You’ll remember that Ray Jackson was the man who Rod Stewart thanks on his album Never A Dull Moment as ‘the mandolin player from Lindisfarne whose name escapes me’. Another drink, Rod?

As I’ll be playing Peter Hammill albums all night I won’t go into too much detail mainly because you could write an essay about every song he writes. Suffice to say this album was the beginning of a prolific solo career that to date includes 61 albums if you include live albums and compilations. The albums I’ll be playing tonight are his first four, Fool’s Mate (1971), The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage (1974), Chameleon In The Shadow Of Night (1973), and In Camera (1974). Hammill’s incredible voice and delivery along with all the lyrical ideas which seem to go from strange visions to normal life experiences are always thoughtful in some way. On Fool’s Mate I must mention Child as a wonderful track, although it’s a crime not to mention any other songs.

By the second album Chameleon In The Shadow Of Night (1973), Van der Graaf Generator had broken up. You can hear the story of why or at least part of the reason in the lyric to the first track, German Overalls. It’s just too hard and too expensive to be a touring rock band that is only amazing. Still all the latest VDGG members play on the album so it really was more about financial discomfort rather than personal issues. Lots of great tracks on this one, magical Mellotron on Easy To Slip Away.

This might be the time to mention the cover art. Both this album and Fool’s Mate were at the hand of Paul Whitehead. He also did H To He Who Am The Only One (1970) and Pawn Hearts for Van der Graaf Generator and let’s not forget those classic Genesis album covers Trespass, Foxtrot and Nursery Cryme. The photograph on the cover of Chameleon In The Shadow Of Night was taken by Bettina Hohls who was involved with Ash Ra Tempel and Timothy Leary as a vocalist on the album Seven Up (1972). She is also a synesthete, I’ll let you look that up. Paul Whitehead has gratefully prepared other album covers in the In Deep Collection, namely High Tide – Sea Shanties (1969), Renaissance – Illusion (1971) and Tom Fogerty – Myopia (1975) as well as three covers for Italian Proggers Le Orme.

The Silent Corner And The Empty Stage was the third solo album although it again featured all the members of Van der Graaf Generator. Artwork is by Bettina Hohls. The album opens with the classic 7-minute Modern, what a sound the band makes, odd notes, over the top singing, you can see where Johnny Lydon got his ideas from. He just changed the packaging. Randy California appears on Red Shift, all the songs are long on this album, Red Shift is 8 minutes. Even the short songs are long.

In Camera was the second last solo album before the band got back together but not the last solo album, there are another 57 after this one. Nadir’s Big Chance came in 1975 but also in that year Van der Graaf Generator reformed and released Godbluff. A lot of In Camera was recorded at home (Sofa Sound), then he took it to Trident Studios where he added ARP synth and Guy Evans played drums. There’s also percussive appearances from original member Chris Judge Smith (who left in 1968) and the cover art man Paul Whitehead (although this was not his cover art). When you hear this challenging, dark record, it makes you wonder why we needed Punk Rock, apart from the speed and the safety pins of course.

Make sure that after this post you research Peter Hammill and Van der Graaf Generator. I wrote about the first VDGG album the other day (essentially a Peter Hammill solo album), Aerosol Grey Machine (1969). He is like Roy Harper one of the great originals of British music. I’ve mentioned this before but I’ve met him a couple of times, but I may not have told you about the time he was watching me in Canada restring my guitar standing up, tuning up and coming in at exactly the right moment with the broken string replaced. He came up to me afterwards and said he’d never seen anything like it, talk about tension, it was like James Bond defusing a bomb. (In Camera’s Magog is the aftermath of the explosion.)

Song Of The Day is Pendulum from the Seeing Stars album released in 1997. Why? After Peter Hammill it’s obvious.

 

Pendulum

Left hanging delicately
You lean forward over the rail
And you haven’t seen me
These hallways never seem to end
Only conspire to exaggeration

Now watch the time
A hand grenade
Death by design
An accolade

Unhinged, all askew
All unconsidered
All backwards and forwards
All finished all done

Now watch the time
A hand grenade
Death by design
An accolade

Tick tock, tick tock
Pendulum swinging
Death by design
An accolade

Morning slips discreetly in
You lean forward over the rail
Until you see me

Now watch the time
A hand grenade
Death by design
An accolade

Now watch the time
A hand grenade
Death by design
An accolade

Tick tock, tick tock
Tick tock, tick tock
Tick tock, tock tock tock tock tock…

(Willson-Piper / Cousin / Price)
Seeing Stars – Seeing Stars (1997)

So from Monday the shops are opening and this means that we are only allowed to walk up the street on one side and down the street on the other side. If the tube trains are full of people, if Dominant Kumquat can do what he did, then why are the rules so strict in other places, de Pfeffell? The rules should surely be stricter in places with a larger population and certainly should be adhered to more responsibly by those making the rules. I’m not saying that people shouldn’t err on the side of caution, of course they should, but the rules must surely be the same for everybody. In America they seem to be opening up as the infections get worse. It would be so nice to live in a world where there wasn’t always an agenda that serves those that create the agenda. Was it always like this? Is it just that it’s easier to spot nowadays? I’m sure that a democratic leader has never been so blatantly cruel, divisive and self-serving and tried so hard to outrageously turn people against each other as that out of tune trumpet, hoping, just hoping that his side has that extra vote that topples the balance in his favour. How amazing it will be if he has miscalculated and the darkness can return to its damp little corner of racism and bigotry where it belongs, invisible till it dies forever.

I try to stay happy out there and frankly life for me has changed little except that the scale has tipped more to the internet, the archive and the studio. No gigs for a year is hard to accept, but it creates time for writing, recording, sessioneering, researching music for the archive and my latest venture, that is learning French. Duolingo is a great tool to learn a language, but you have to be interested, it’s like anything, your interest and your commitment has to outweigh the struggle. It’s tough and if it was easy everyone would speak nine languages and play eight instruments. With the sessioneers there’s a world in which I try to encourage people to find their creative spirit, be inspired and get excited about creativity generally. Artistic creation is one of the most exciting places to be, it’s better than everything. It’s external and internal, it soothes the soul and satisfies the ego without all the nasty bits (those bits can be controlled, really they can).

Today in Season 3 of Star Trek – The Original Series we witnessed what was always mythologically imagined as the first interracial kiss on television. Why is it even called that?? Do we mark the first kiss between a blonde and a brunette? We act like we are different to each other, we’re not, we’re the same. I really like this habit of Netflix over dinner. It might be because we don’t have a table. The idea of sitting at a table to eat is very strange. When I get to a restaurant, I want the food on my lap! Ha ha, not really. I remember going to an Ethiopian restaurant once in LA and they served you the food with no cutlery. I guess you were supposed to use the bread to take up the food. It was the time when World Music got big. I must say that I could live on Asian food without any trouble. Between Thai, Vietnamese, Japanese and Indian I could be happy.

I had two seshes today, one with Noelle in Montreal. As a musical singer she has a lovely pure voice and she makes all chords sound lovely. Like Joanne in Portland she has a lovely songbird sitting in her throat, the only difference is that at this stage Joanne has written 900 more songs, we’re going to fix that. After Noelle I spoke to Brian in Orlando, he just got a copy of The Moody Blues’ Days Of Future Passed from 1967. Olivia and I saw them play this album live in Texas. It was a little weird, a bit too nostalgia trip for me. They used the original strings on tape and they talked to the audience like old men at an old people’s social club. Aging does something terrible to musicians, they turn into the establishment way too easily, it might not just be age, it must also be the money.

Last but not least I have to report that today I used my LFC umbrella for the first time! Thanks Gerd and Siv (birthday present). I found it to successfully stop water falling from the sky onto my head, this means it works. Thank you.

Music today is honouring Roy Harper’s 79th birthday. Born in Rusholme, Manchester, in 1941 he has become one of the English greats with his beautiful songs, his fantastic voice, his evocative lyrics, his acerbic attacks on society’s hypocrisy and his irreverent sense of humour. The other day I suggested where to start by listing ten albums. Well I’ll play some of them tonight. I’ve recently played Stormcock and Flashes From The Archives Of Oblivion. So tonight I’ll choose some more albums from different eras starting in 1977 with Bullinamingvase. The album was called One Of Those Days In England in America after the title track that opens Side 1 and then continues on the whole of Side 2 for 19 minutes (too short). There’s a line before the song gets going about her majesty’s government keeping him out of work, saving him for the job of “rolling spliffs for Captain Kirk”. Paul and Linda are there singing backing vocals with Ronnie Lane on bass and Alvin Lee on guitar.

“One of those days in England with a sword in every pond”, only Roy Harper could have come up with that evocative line. There’s a whole lot of great musicians on the album, Henry McCullogh on guitar, Dave Lawson on keys, John Halsey on drums, one of The Rutles and ex Patto, he also played on Lou Reed’s Transformer. Then there’s a bit of Percy Jones from Brand X, a bit of Jimmy McCulloch, Andy Roberts from Plainsong and BJ Cole, session pedal steel and dobro player, who is on a million famous albums. But in the end it’s always Harper’s wide vision of observation that inspires. One of those moments is Watford Gap where he eviscerates a certain motorway service menu. He was made to take it off all but the first pressing on the album because one of the morons on the EMI board was also part of the company that owned Watford Gap. (I have the first pressing.)

In 1985 Roy finally got to make the album he’s been wanting to make with Jimmy Page playing guitar. Of course Page appeared on earlier Roy Harper albums, but on this one he was actually credited on the front cover along with Roy. Whatever Happened To Jugula? was designed as a Rizla cigarette papers packet with cut out instructions so you could make your own giant version. The album came with a message for the music press on the lyric page:

“Dear Gutter, skip this whole page if you work in the UK music/art/press business as it will be meaningless to you. Bronco”

You can hear Jimmy Page right away on the first track Nineteen Forty-Eightish and after the spoken word, Bad Speech, he’s there on Hope on electric guitar. It actually sounds like a guitar part from one of my ex band albums, actually played by Page but written by Dave Gilmour. (Check out Pete Townshend’s White City Fighting, it’s the same song with Pete instead of Roy in charge of the lyrics and the melody.) Tony Franklin plays bass, it’s around the same time Franklin and Page joined Paul Rodgers in The Firm with Chris Slade on drums.

The album has a lot of thin Ovation guitars, it’s almost like they were taken in by that ‘different’ tone coming from an acoustic. They are very particular, listen to Lola by The Kinks. I used one in All About Eve for one or two songs but they seem rather plastic-y to me. There’s some lovely electric guitar moments on the album though where you remember why you love Jimmy Page, especially on Elizabeth, where there’s just something about those fingers. And that lyric, “It’s time that we joined our hands across our world, it’s time that we joined our hands to save our world”. Again Roy Harper’s song and singing pull it through, heavy friends help, but he doesn’t really need them. The whole album sounds like a stoner’s picnic with lots of laughter leading to thoughtful conclusions.

By 1990 and Once, the title and opening track stars Dave Gilmour and Kate Bush. That Ovation is back, but it’s a lovely song as his songs often are. Vivisection is next in Nowhere To Run To, powerful stuff, Roy is angry, he was always angry about something, generally for good reason. If it’s not the animal cruelty it’s the terrorists and his song The Black Cloud Of Islam might sound like a generalization of the faith, but to me it’s just a plea to stop killing in the name of a supernatural being. In the next song, If, he doesn’t single out a faith as a rule, he questions God in general by suggesting that no god can stand “man to man” – “where’s the love you’re always talking of when you can’t stand man to man”.

Winds Of Change and Berliners get political, the poll tax and the wall. He seems to write despairingly and then returns with hope. That seems to me to be how we all are, disappointed with the world and then trying to be positive. On Sleeping At The Wheel beauty appears in the loveliness of poetic domesticity and love. Love and hope again in For Longer Than It Takes. He finishes with the chorus line from the last track Ghost Dance, “You imagine you can change the world, and you’re right”.

In 2013 Roy Harper made Man & Myth, his first album in 13 years after The Green Man from 2000. Half the album is recorded and co-produced by Jonathan Wilson in LA and the other half by John Fitzgerald in West Cork. Opening track The Enemy talks of different soldiers, men and women. Next, a lovely reflection on the inevitable passing of time in Time Is Temporary. Side 1 ends on this three-sided record with the record’s theme, the contemplation of mortality. In January Man every partner is loosely imagined and every moment of life pondered. This recurring theme that continues into The Stranger might be all a man like this can do. He’s been everywhere else in this long life. He commented on the fact that it had been such a long time since his last album that he “thought he’d retired”. A newer generation of hip young things have rediscovered him, Jonathan Wilson, Joanna Newsom and that has urged him out of retirement. The reviews for this album were glowing. It’s a long way from his relationship with the press in the late seventies and eighties.

In Cloud Cuckooland Pete Townshend plays guitars, it’s an observant political statement about morality and the mistakes the world is condemned to repeat. The album’s longest track, Heaven Is Here, comes in at 15 minutes (his long songs are always too short). An allegory in mythology, you always get the idea that wherever Roy lives, whether it be in ancient Greece or Watford Gap that he’s the scribe that sees through to the truth. It may be trivia or it may be serious, it may be love, it may be death, but he’s always there in the shadows succinctly commenting on behalf of humankind.

The album ends with The Exile (although there’s a little something else at the very end). Is The Exile a song of regret or acceptance? He meanders off in a beautiful vessel of poetry and laughter and now, today, as he reaches his 79th birthday I truly hope that the rumour that another album may possibly be forthcoming is true, because I would surely like this trip to heaven to take a little more time before he crosses over into the inevitable.

Song Of The Day is Feed Your Mind from Nightjar, thanks Roy, I have and I will.

 

Feed Your Mind

In smoky museums of relics and strangers
Experts in brandy and rye
With unequalled wisdom of players and score lines
Statistics to dazzle the blind

Exchanging glances with the Germans and the Spanish
That slip in and out of your life
Throwing down their rucksacks on the sawdust floorboards
As they settle on a bottle of wine

At the end of the night
We all speak the same language
As you fall off your stool one more time
Then we all fall in love as we wave our farewells
Goodnight, goodnight

And they’re never seen again
For the tourists they are
They never come back to frequent your little bar
And you can’t deny
You gotta feed your mind

So you wake up that morning with a headache from Arabia
Handed down by Bedouins and slaves
And you look into the mirror and you wonder at the cost
And how much of the future you can save

With your friends all gone to India
And you’re losing on the lottery
If they buy a Bombay Gin for you
Can you contemplate sobriety
Tonight, tonight

And your bookshelf’s looking sparse
And the television blares
And they’re travelling to Mars now as you fall off your chair
Don’t you wanna try?
You gotta feed your mind

Then you’re sitting on the boulevard with a girl from Argentina
Reading Le Monde in record time
And you can’t decide which entrée
As you peruse the menu
So you settle on the avocado lime

Then you’re sitting in your sportscar
With your number plates from Monaco
And you’re headed down the coast to catch a flight
And you wake up in the hospital
With your face unrecognisable
And the nurse just comes and switches off the light
She switches off the light
The light

And nobody remembers who is missing from the corner
But if I were you I’d listen when the light comes on to warn you
You better have a life
You gotta feed your mind

(Willson-Piper)
Nightjar (2008)