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I could start today by saying I was abused again by another woman whilst talking to Pete in the newsagents, but that would be too awful. That’s two women who have told me to F. off unprovoked this week. Two weeks into the lockdown, I won’t go into the dumb details, but I guess people are losing it. Also Adam Schlesinger from Fountains Of Wayne seems to have succumbed and he was just 52, I know Jody a bit from the band, so terrible. I read today that a quarter of the world is on lockdown, but not Stockholm? It’s my birthday in a month (May 7th), could that possibly be a date when things are going to get better? Unconnected to the virus, Bill Withers also died today, he was 81. Who doesn’t love Lean On Me, Lovely Day and Ain’t No Sunshine, it’s not just Soul Music, it’s Profoundly Affecting Music, it’s a genre all of its own.

The day started cloudy, got worse, then the sun came out and everything got better, because it was Space Summit guitar day. As you can see by today’s picture, we like to experiment. Sometimes a certain guitar springs to mind for a track and other times you have to try a few different ones to see which one works the best, sometimes it’s also about combinations. For example today in the verse we used the Jazz and the butchered Rick 6 (that’s why it’s red, it’s the blood). In the intro we needed the Les Paul as well. Then there’s which amp to use, AC 30, JC 120, Orange 15, Champ? I realize these are just numbers and weird names to most people, but to me they are my tools like a painter has his brushes or a plumber his spanners! (Ha ha.) Notice that all the electric guitars in this picture are 6 strings, it’s that kind of song, the previous song we worked on was Rick 12, you never really know what you’re doing and yet it usually becomes obvious. Making records can be quick if you are a band all in a room together or it can be time consuming if you have the singer in Minneapolis, the drummer in Bristol and the guitar player and bassist in Cornwall. One person recording (operating the technical stuff) in the US and another two in England. Demo ideas being played by one person in America and realized by another in the United Kingdom. What I love about Britain is that it has so many different names.

I talked to Stephen at the record label today about it all. We have a finished album in Poison Stream by MOAT, but because of the situation we are in we are unable to specify a release date. We were planning on touring in America this year, trip planned, air tickets booked, selected gigs with Salim and our great new agent Joady had the routing sorted and then all this happened so I guess everything is postponed till next year (hopefully not the MOAT album release). The Anekdoten Quebec shows and potential Canadian dates for Olivia and I this year seem unlikely. I don’t really want to go over it all again, but with people losing their lives or their livelihoods and no certain conclusion, one thing I know is that freaking out and being rude to strangers is not the answer.

I felt like some real Scottish Blues Rock tonight so I listened to the first two Stone The Crows albums, self-titled and Ode To John Law, both released in 1970 (those were the days). What a singer Maggie Bell is, the Scottish Janis Joplin. The band also starred James Dewar who became bass player and singer with Robin Trower on his classic albums (Steve Thompson took over from him). Drummer Colin Allen has played with an impressive list of bands and artists and in 1974 joined Focus. Jimmy McCulloch was also in the band later (before Wings and after Thunderclap Newman) and after lead guitarist Les Harvey, who was tragically electrocuted on stage in the Swansea Top Rank Club in 1972 (he was Alex Harvey’s brother). Ronnie Leahy, who later played with Jack Bruce and Nazareth, replaced John McGinnis on keys (keeping it Scottish). But you must at least hear the first album with its crackin’ bluesy version of The Fool On The Hill and the experimental Prog/Blues of I Saw America, a full seventeen minutes long and taking up all of Side 2.

I heard from Jerome Froese today, he’s been working on our project in Berlin. He turned me on to a German band from the seventies that I didn’t know, called (wait for it) Virus. They made two albums back then, Revelation and Thoughts, both released in 1971. I listened to the first album on Spotify, liked it, but didn’t get to the second album yet. A live album recorded in 1973 was released much later. Apparently the second album is quite different to the first, less Floydy and more Bluesy. Half the band left after Revelation and went on to form Weed (1971). I know, crazy name, fantastic album. I was turned on to it by Nicklas from Anekdoten (he has an original copy). Allegedly Uriah Heep’s Ken Hensley sang and played the heavy organ on it uncredited. The organ player is supposed to be Rainer Schnelle, but it does sound like Ken Hensley. What gave it away for me was the slide guitar playing.

Last but not least (I never did get to Bill Withers, maybe tomorrow), after the Weed album, I had to play Look At Yourself by The Heep. One of the first albums I ever owned, I’ve been told it is rubbish ever since day one, but I love it. They were the first headline band I saw. It was 1973 or 1974 at the Liverpool Stadium. I remember I was wearing grey jeans and a blue denim jacket, kinda dressed up, before I discovered holes and rips. It was my first big night out, it’s hard to not like the first band you saw.

Seeing we’ve been hitting the heavy stuff tonight I thought Luscious Ghost from Spirit Level (1992) might be appropriate:

 

Luscious Ghost

First I drew a breath
Fell into sleep
I was laughing at death
When I fell too deep
I awoke in a room
That I’d never seen
With velvet drapes
And ancient beams

And the night, she was whispering
And the portrait seemed to be real

I see your luscious ghost
Sharing you with the host
I see your luscious ghost

In a tear
Lies a force
You can’t fathom the fear
Or drink from the source
But you do
Running at you like light
Suffocated by darkness
And the widow in white

And the sky, she comes pressing down
Takes you, drowns you in blue

I see your luscious ghost
Sharing you with the host
I see your luscious ghost

And the sky, she comes pressing down
Takes you and drowns you in blue

I see your luscious ghost
Sharing you with the host
I see your luscious ghost

I see your luscious ghost
I see your luscious ghost

(Willson-Piper)
Spirit Level (1992)

Being in Berlin all day yesterday I didn’t get to mention what else I was up to on the listening front and to tell you also about Noel’s record donation. Noel lives in England and has become one of the sessioneers. He plays guitar and writes and we’re working on realizing songs and more writing. Whilst talking Noel told me he had a record collection that he would like to donate to the archive and because he lives in England he could even bring it down to Cornwall. So he did just that and one weekend Noel visited and arrived with four of those old-fashioned plastic record carriers full of records. There were some records I had and some I didn’t, but having an archive is not just about one version of an album. There’s different pressings, different cover art, different labels and releases from different countries. There’s also condition to consider. I might have an original copy of Alice Cooper’s Schools Out, but what condition is it in? With the collection that Noel donated all the records were in perfect condition which brought me to Pink Floyd’s Wish You Were Here. I was telling Noel that I’d picked it to play – a copy in mint condition, played once. But then he reminded me that there was another copy of Wish You Were Here in the collection, half-speed mastered. This is a super high quality version of the album. So I played that one and again as it was in perfect condition and of such exceptionally high quality it sounded amazing on my stereo. Me, the archive, and Olivia (who loves Wish You Were Here) are forever grateful for the gift, so thank you again.

All you super informed music lovers out there are aware that the track Have A Cigar on Wish You Were Here is not sung by a member of Pink Floyd but by the irrepressible, godlike Roy Harper. If you didn’t know that and you are old enough to have heard his name before you might remember Hats Off To (Roy) Harper on Led Zep 3. Paul and Linda sang on his classic sprawling epic, One Of These Days, in England from Bullinamingvase (1977). Alvin Lee played guitar on it, Ronnie Lane played bass on it. Lane and Keith Moon played with him live for Flashes From The Archives Of Oblivion with its controversial cover that caused a strike amongst the women at EMI. Elizabeth Fraser from Cocteau Twins sang Another Day on This Mortal Coil’s first album, It’ll End In Tears – originally on Flat Baroque And Berserk (1970). Dave Gilmour and Kate Bush appeared on The Unknown Soldier (1980) and Once (1990). Jimmy Page appeared playing guitars uncredited due to contractual issues. So he had heavy friends, but the reason he did was because he was so great. I’ve seen him live a few times, spoken on the phone with him once and met him in person when he came to see All About Eve play and came backstage to say hello. So after Wish You Were Here I played one of his greatest albums, Stormcock (1971). He’s famous for his long, lyrical songs, his wry observations, his protestations and his melodic singing voice – this album has just four songs. I love a lot of his albums, this is as good a place to start as any. Johnny Marr called Stormcock “Hunky Dory’s big, badder brother”.

And then there’s Espers, my mate Boydy recently told me he has been on a mega Espers appreciation trip. I have three CDs by them called I (2003), ll (2005), and lll (2009). There’s also a covers album called The Weed Tree released after the first album that I don’t have (Boydy does). It might sound strange to say this but they are an American Psychedelic Folk band from Philadelphia – and why not? It’s really quite beautiful and interesting music and very well produced and recorded it seems by Greg Weeks, singer, guitarist and various other instrument player. It sounds lush and luxurious but has all kinds of odd noises I gather made from cellos and analog keyboards. The other members are Meg Baird on various instruments and vocals with Brooke Sietinsons on mainly guitar on the first album and with Otto Hauser and Helena Espvall on the following two, making all kinds of lovely sounds. All three albums are highly recommended. Where are they now? Well, Greg teaches English and makes solo albums, Meg sings and drums in Heron Oblivion, makes solo albums and has projects. All well worth an investigative afternoon whilst you are indoors, just ask Boydy.

We went out into the breezy day and you could actually feel the warmth of the sun on your face. The park is alive with animals, the exotic plants are beginning to grow, there are purple, white and yellow pansies exploding in the flower beds, budding trees and bushes, but where we stood there were no people – on a Thursday afternoon in a springtime park. It was like an episode of Star Trek – M class planet, a paradise away from Earth, but where are the inhabitants? In our case we are hiding from the virus, on Star Trek it would be that an ancient machine sends out a deafening pulse to deter humanoids from destroying the idyll as the planet revolves around the twin moons on its 37 hour day. I may have imagined this because we watched the pilot for the very first Star Trek episode tonight with Captain Pike, Kirk wasn’t the captain yet. On these walks around Penzance we sometimes find a nice location for a snap and today’s picture is a perfect example and in this case the picture dictated part of the music itinerary.

I was sitting next to Rob Hirst, the drummer from Midnight Oil, at the State Theatre in Sydney. We’d got free tickets for a concert there to see a rather famous singer-songwriter, one you might not imagine that Rob and I would be interested in seeing. Who was it? It was David Gates, the singer and main writer from Bread. Quite surprising, seventies purveyor of Soft Rock with a million hits and a billion sales that Punk happily sent to its grave, at least outside the US, although there we were in the 21st century in our plush red seats. So he came on stage and looked rather uncomfortable or should I say rather annoyed. As I remember the first thing he said was “Don’t go calling out for songs, we’ll get to them”. It wasn’t good-humoured it was like ‘all you peasants want are the hits and I’m making a lot of money playing them and I have to do it, but I really don’t have to put up with you morons shouting out for them’. Ha ha. He looked very stern, bored and serious as he said this, dwarfed by his stoopid oversized cowboy hat that looked really bad on this little guy. He played the set, we all sat there on our best behaviour and tried not to clap less for the lesser known songs than we would for the hits.

His songwriting is world famous, but did you know that in the sixties he worked with Captain Beefheart as a producer? How is that even possible? He was very active as a songwriter in the sixties using pseudonyms to release his songs. He worked with Elvis, Merle Haggard, Brian Wilson and many more. He wrote Saturday’s Child for The Monkees and was originally in a band called The Accents with Leon Russell. He is proficient on guitar, bass, violin and piano.

Oh yeah, then theres’ that small concern called Bread.

Formed in 1969 with Robb Royer and James Griffin (Royer later replaced with Larry Knetchel); after the first album Mike Botts joined as the permanent drummer. Bread went on to have 11 songs in the Billboard Top 100. Some of them major hits and some of them major hits again by other artists. The ones you definitely know if you are a certain age are Make It With You, If, Guitar Man, Everything I Own and Baby I’m A Want You. Kojak (Telly Savalas) took If to No.1 and the song was also covered by Frank Sinatra and Jack Jones. Ken Boothe had a Reggae hit with Everything I Own which was in turn covered in a Reggae version by Boy George. Something about his songs kept on being hits, but he was a moody old sod. Rob and I and a couple of others got taken backstage to meet him, he saw us and immediately turned and walked away.

In a mellow mood today one of my most Soft Rock songs might be How Can I Help It from Rhyme, fall asleep to it, I’d consider it an honour:

 

How Can I Help It

Chased through an everglade
Caught behind a window pane
Lay down captured gave in again
Can’t help it

Look I saw a stranger
He asked me in like danger
That’s what I needed then
Can’t help it

Should I let chance lie sleeping
If I had I wouldn’t be here now

How can I help it
When should I say yes or no
How can I help it
A moment’s blast and then the past has gone

Pawned in a silent shop
Only the ticking of the clock
I just went in to look around
Yes I touched but I didn’t buy
Can’t help it

You know I have to grow
And there is so much more

How can I help it
When should I say yes or no
How can I help it
A moment’s blast and then the past has gone

How can I help it
When should I say yes or no
When should I say yes or no
(Shadows)
When should I say yes or no
When should I say yes or no

(Willson-Piper)
Rhyme (1989)

As it was April 1st and I was stuck like everyone else in this damned lockdown, I decided to go to Berlin today, I was back before I left, but whilst I was there I listened to Low, Heroes and Lodger. Then I broke out The Idiot, Lust For Life and New Values (although New Values was not recorded in Berlin). I was first there in 1977 at the same time as Bowie and Iggy, but as a 19-year-old hitchhiker busking with an acoustic guitar and chasing a German girl I’d met in Spain, I was hardly going to run into either of them. I had so little money that I wasn’t able to do much as far as going to see bands. I remember driving outside the Deutschlandhalle whilst Frank Zappa was playing and just knowing he was in there was exciting. I don’t remember the local lad who was driving, but he had something like a Fiat 500 or an Autobianchi, small and beetle-shaped but not a VW. It seems this fantasy of being somewhere I can’t be has happened before.

Earlier this year we were playing in Berlin by request at Marty Kasprzak’s birthday celebration in a Steam Punk club with all his friends there. Our friends Ryan and Tomoko (who have more than once let us stay with them whilst we breathed in the Berlin atmosphere), Jerome Froese and his partner Anja and old All About Eve fan Justin were also there. Justin was at all the gigs we played then (he looks kinda the same) and now he speaks fluent German, lives in Berlin and has done for years. Strange how doing what we do, you constantly meet new people, but then you see someone you haven’t seen for years, someone you didn’t know well but spoke to many times and is so familiar to you from your past. They can turn up anywhere and what’s really strange is when you meet them out of context, in different circumstances, a different city or in a different era with a different band. What is even stranger is when you don’t recognize them and they have to tell you who they are and you completely remember them, but can’t believe how they’ve changed. I suppose if you’ve been playing, touring, travelling and living in different cities in the world and playing in different bands for 40 years it’s going to be like that.

During that stay in Berlin in the seventies I went over to East Berlin to check it out. I still remember some things about it. I remember going into a supermarket and there being lots of empty shelves, rather like here today. I remember that a lot of the buildings that might have been museums or government institutions in the West were still burned out from the war. I remember walking past what seemed to be Russian barracks and all the soldiers shouting and jeering out of the windows at the Western Freaks. I remember that when we crossed the border I handed my passport to a man behind a curtain and a disconnected hand gave it back to me. I remember them confiscating Western newspapers. I remember standing in Alexanderplatz and someone coming up to me wanting to sell me jeans, which seemed odd as I was from the West, but it was all about trying to get Western money.

I suppose around that time Nina Hagen was causing havoc, but not actually doing anything illegal (that she got caught for). I heard that at one point when she left they told her she couldn’t come back. Ha ha, the West can keep her, we happily did just that. I travelled there from Northern Spain, I’d been in Lerida doing the peach and pear picking with Dare and after we were done I think he went to visit some university friends who were on holiday in Northern Spain and left for England when they did. I stayed and hitchhiked to Berlin. It was quite a trip, I remember I was quite sick at one point, ate something bad and was stationery for a few days, I can’t quite remember where. When I was well enough to travel I started North. I’d hitch till dark then sleep rough in whatever town I found myself. I think it was Girona where I awoke with a strange man throwing stones at me. At 19 I had no fear and who knows how many situations I almost found myself in.

I made trips like this around Europe at least three times, first with my friend Lesley who I’ve recently been back in touch with. I worked with her in a Manchester hotel (that’s where I met all the Punk bands, 999, The Adverts, The Only Ones), but that’s another story. Once I went with Dare (or was it twice) and maybe once by myself, but all these trips forty years later have somehow blended into one trip. I met some cool French musicians once and stayed with them for a while. I remember learning The Great Deceiver by King Crimson with them. They picked me up in a Citroen 2CV. Whenever you saw a 2CV coming you knew you were going to get a lift.

The lift I got from France to Berlin was across East Germany. I was picked up by a very lovely unassuming fragile kind of a fellow, he looked like an intellectual. I can’t remember what he did, perhaps he was a teacher. Remember that in those days West Berlin was an island in the middle of East Germany. You had to travel through a ‘corridor’ that ran from France. It was a long trip and somewhere on the way we were suddenly pulled over by uniformed East German police carrying machine guns. They made him get out of the car and made me stay in the car. I’m not sure if he spoke German or if they spoke French, but after a while he came back to the car 500 French Francs poorer. They’d fined him for something he didn’t do. It was for the Western money, who was going to argue.

I could spend a lot of time thinking about those days in Berlin. It was the first time I tried falafel. I also remember going out of the centre of the city to the suburbs and sitting in a cafe by the wall and having an East German border guard look down on us from a watchtower with binoculars. When I finally left I managed to get a lift from Berlin all the way to Amsterdam where I stayed overnight with a cool couple in one of those great Dutch thin houses.

Olivia and I have been there at least three times, once to see Jeff Beck, once to work with Jerome Froese and once to play. We are actually booked to play there again in the summer should we be allowed to travel there. One of the times we were there we went and visited the place where Bowie and Iggy used to live (I love being a R’n’R tourist). Olivia filmed some footage (nothing fancy), just a short homage to our old music heroes. So have a look and then go and listen to your amazing Bowie and Iggy albums from the period, especially Low, Heroes and The Idiot.

 
Song Of The Day today is something dark and heavy, Already Dead from the second Noctorum album Offer The Light (2006). It’s the execution of a man who knew his fate a long time before it was handed to him.

 

Already Dead

I tried to find something inside you

You know there’s something about being alone in a cell
When there’s just you and your thoughts
And upstairs in an austere room they wait for you in court
And they march you in and you can see in their eyes
That they’ve all made up their minds
And that’s when it hits you straight in the face
That you’ve paid for it all with your life

And the Judge looks over in a mocking tone
He asks you how you plead
And you say ‘Guilty’, trying to show remorse
But your tactics won’t succeed
The blood on your hands is so thick and fresh
And everything’s been said
And you’re back in your cell and a voice from hell
Tells you that you’re already dead
Already dead
Already dead
You’re already dead
You’re already dead

I tried to find something inside you
I tried to find something inside you

With the verdict heard and the final word
The date that you will die
And somehow you knew from the day you were born
That you were gonna fry
Then the Priest is drunk ’cause it’s the only way
He’ll hear your confession
Then you realize as they lead you away
This really is your final lesson

As they strap you in you notice that
The leather is quite worn
From the thousand shaking sweaty wrists
Of the killers gone before
And you piss your pants as they lower down
The helmet on your head
And as you die, there’s no reason to cry
Because you knew that you were already dead

You’re already dead
You’re already dead
Already dead
Already dead

Aww already dead
Already dead
Already dead
I’m already dead

I tried to find something inside you
I tried to find something inside you
I tried to find something inside you
I tried to find something inside you

Already Dead

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

The death of Alan Merrill and his wife’s post about the sequence of events is a stark reminder of how this tragedy unveiled itself from what appeared to be nothing and ended with Alan’s fast passing. This is of course happening all over the world to faceless strangers, but one thing that struck me was how quickly it all unfolds. Then there’s the not being able to share the last hours, because of how infectious the virus is. I would really like to see some figures about normal influenzas and their toll, which as I understand it is also very high and much higher than we all imagined. Did their relatives get to see their loved ones? What is it about this one that is so contagious? But then, when the figures have come out over the passing weeks about hunger, suicide, cancer, the figures are frightening – and those figures are supposed to be what we consider normal. How terrible is that?

Then there’s general panic. We had a bad experience today in the street. Olivia and I were walking down to the supermarket via the recycling next to the sea. I was on the phone to Jed in Minneapolis, discussing some details about the Space Summit album we’ve been working on. A woman was coming towards us with two King Charles Spaniels. She started to get agitated and then shouted at us for ‘nonchalantly’ walking along the pavement and not moving over. Admittedly I was preoccupied with the call, but she could have just crossed over the road, like everyone does these days. So she got abusive, effing and blinding. She was so full of fear. Also it was her taking up a lot of space with her two dogs. Some other people were there and saw what happened, another couple and a girl. They couldn’t believe how she reacted, told us to ignore it. I was wondering if our posh sophisticated looking coats also offended her, she probably thought we were those terrible disease carrier types from ‘Up Country’ London way, where all the foreigners are. We’ve had premises here for 15 years, the coats are second hand. I was thinking, one week of lockdown and already people are losing it.

So contemplating the ocean today was more somber than usual as we watched the fishing trawlers sail out from Newlyn harbour. I wondered if they felt they were escaping the danger as they went off for a week away on perilous seas, cold cabins and unpredictable events manipulating dangerous equipment in little slow-moving boats, floating on an angry ocean thousands of fathoms deep, miles from home. But at least they are avoiding the infection. If you ever saw Day Of The Triffids (1962) starring Howard Keel, you’ll remember that his character Bill had been in the hospital recovering from an operation on his eyes and so when the lights came down from the sky his eyes were covered with bandages. Again, if you haven’t seen the film…it’s silly but great. The original book was written in 1951 by John Wyndham. The point is that Bill avoided the affliction like the fishermen might.

On a tangent, John Wyndham’s full name was John Wyndham Parkes Lucas Beynon Harris. He also wrote The Midwich Cuckoos (1957), which was also filmed and released as Village Of The Damned in 1960 and again in 1995. A sequel, Children Of The Damned was released in 1964. You may also remember The Kraken Awakes (1953) and The Chrysalids (1955), that is if you are an avid Science Fiction reader and interested in the genre’s history. The Day Of The Triffids book ends differently to the film.

Music today has been somewhat haphazard starting with a couple of CDs by Glenn Tilbrook, singer, guitarist and co-writer with Chris Difford of all your favourite Squeeze tunes. Great Pop singer and writer and not half bad guitar player, too. I met him briefly once with another friend who I have in fact lost touch with.

I’ve had two CDs come through the post recently that could not be further apart. I’ve talked about them both in past posts and it sounds so weird to place them together. Manu Dibango’s Wakafrika and Gudrun Gut’s Wildlife. Afro Jazz to contemporary German electronic experimentation. Don’t you just love music?

So I finally hit the vinyl and was having hard time figuring out what I wanted to hear, but then realized that it was the Cocteau Twins and so I pulled out Garlands (1982) and Head Over Heels (1983). There was something in that razor silk guitar and doomy beauty, a landscape of hope and the acceptance of one’s lot. An originality in the voice and the approach, a drum machine that you would never replace with a human, a feeling of modernity, a Punk ethic with an arty and experimental manifesto. Whatever happened to Elizabeth Fraser’s musical life in recent years? Where are the eight albums she should have made? Massive Attack collaborations aside there has been little output and talk of a solo record has been going on for years.

Finally, I just needed a serious mood change and went for Pink Floyd – Meddle (1971). Can’t really go wrong here. There’s something warm and snug about Meddle. Those were the days, recorded January to August 1971 (eight months), released October 1971, a few short weeks later. It doesn’t work like that anymore. Staying on Pink Floyd and Obscured By Clouds, released inbetween Meddle and Dark Side Of The Moon in 1972. It was a soundtrack to the French film La Vallée and really, Floyd fans, should not be overlooked.

Song Of The Day today reflects the fear in the streets. The Sniper from Nightjar, a kind of Floydy/Waters dark story of a man losing it with society:

 

The Sniper

The daylight won’t bother me
As I sink to the floor
The silence won’t smother me
As I break my own law
And the hero’s in ecstasy
As he waves to the crowd
But the hero’s the enemy
As the truth is devoured

And underneath
We all know it
And I sit
And watch it happen

All this power and corruption
All these politics, lies and greed
And maybe, just maybe if I kill them
We can all be freed
I walk into the kitchen
I stand there at the sink
I gaze out of the window
And really start to think

And underneath
We all know it
And I sit
And let it happen

I’ve waved goodbye to the rational
With this democratic choice
For tonight I’m going national
With my only real voice
And this one’s for the nurses
And the soldiers and the rest
And corporate pollution
And all that I detest
And this one’s for the pleasure
Of disfiguring your face
And thanking you for making me
This justified disgrace

I used to sit
And watch it happen
But I just can’t
Let it happen

(Willson-Piper)
Nightjar (2008)

“I love rock ‘n’ roll so put another dime in the juke box baby”. Who doesn’t know that line, who doesn’t remember that song? But what is it you remember about it? Dumb rock song? Well love it or hate it it was a No.1 US hit (7 weeks at the top) that resonated with a lot of people, the song’s anthemic chorus pounding in their Rock ‘n’ Roll hearts. That’s often the point when there’s a hit, how it resonates with the masses on a whole other level, like perhaps Losing My Religion, or I Still Haven’t Found What I’m Looking For or I Will Always Love You. It’s how it just hits a chord with people, Under The Milky Way did that, too. So everyone remembers I Love R’n’R and you probably remember it was a hit for Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, sneering her way through the chorus. You might even remember the video, black and white, Joan Jett’s heavy eye make up and the Rock guitar bends, the world’s music intellectuals hated it, but who wrote it?

It’s an odd story with today as it has a sad end. There was a band called Arrows who were signed in 1974 by Mickie Most’s Rak label and he produced their first three singles, Touch Too Much reaching No.8, Toughen Up (No.51) and My Last Night With You (No.25). One last single with Mickie Most in charge was I Love Rock ‘n’ Roll (originally a B-side). It didn’t seem to chart anywhere that I can see, but after a TV show producer saw it performed once on TV, Arrows got their own TV show. It went on for two seasons, I remember seeing it and Joan Jett saw it, too, when she was on tour with The Runaways in the UK. Arrows released an album that had none of the Mickie Most produced tracks and signed to MAM management. Once Upon A Time, the opening track on their debut album (1976), was released a month before they signed the deal. Mickie Most was so furious with their signing he refused to release any more of their records, so they found themselves with a record label, hit singles, new management, a popular TV show and no releases.

This brings me to the writers who were two of Arrows’ members, bassist/singer Alan Merrill and guitarist Jake Hooker. Apparently it was written as a response to The Rolling Stones’ It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll (But I Like It). Merrill was the son of Jazz singer Helen Merrill who had found fame in the fifties. He in turn had found a successful career in the oddest of bands in the oddest of places, namely Japan. That’s a long story that you can read about somewhere else but both Merrill and Hooker grew up in America, they were two Americans (two thirds) of what was considered an English three-piece band – English drummer Paul Varley completed the line up. When the TV show ended, the band ended. There were no more singles, no more albums and that was that. I guess Mickie Most got his revenge for them not signing their management to him, even though he was also the record label and initially the producer. In 1979 Joan Jett recorded I Love R’n’R as a B-side to a single with Paul Cook and Steve Jones. In 1981 she did it again with her band The Blackhearts. The rest is history.

The reason I’m telling this story is because today Alan Merrill died of the Corona virus at the age of 69. That’s all of Arrows gone. Jake Hooker died in 2014 aged 61 and Paul Varley died in 2008 at the age of 59. Merrill acted, did sessions, toured with other bands, wrote songs for others and made lots of solo records, Hooker went on to manage his wife who was an actor and singer and Varley played drums with lots of bands including Terry Reid.

One last thing on this (or two) I was asked to play guitar with a band when I was living in New York for a show called The Beat Goes On at The Bottom Line. We played one set of US Punk and New Wave and one set of UK Punk and New Wave. Steve Goulding from the Mekons was in the band. There were guest singers and one of them was Ricky Byrd, the guitarist from Joan Jett And The Blackhearts, super nice man. I remember doing a song that I can’t remember and singing into the same microphone as him. Ha ha. I think I sang Friction? Tom Verlaine had taught me the guitar part, seemed perfect for the show. And the really, really last thing, Barton Price who was in The Models (and played drum pads on She’s King) had a spell as the drummer in The Blackhearts. I only just found out tonight that Britney Spears covered I Love R’n’R. That was a shock, but not as big a shock as seeing Céline Dion and Anastacia doing You Shook Me All Night Long in Las Vegas.

So back to the rest of the day. I had the diamond eyes this afternoon. In the olden days it would have turned into a week of hell, but these days it just gives me a dull headache for a few hours when my eyesight returns to normal. Olivia made me tea and eased my neck and feet muscles, it’s all you can do. Darkness, silence, patience (maybe Pink Floyd on quietly).

I had a sesh tonight with Tyler in Portland, a talented multi-instrumentalist and singer. It’s hard out there having the ideas, the words, the instrumental skills but not the resources to put it all into action. It’s just the damned money that makes the difference. He’s made records before but how to move forward? If I were a millionaire…

Dare and I did some recording today for a Space Summit track, I played a guitar solo on my ’59 Jazzmaster. I haven’t pulled that one out for a while, what an amazing guitar it is. I also spoke to Ed the drummer in Bristol today about the drum tracks, we are getting there. Mixing tomorrow.

Music today was of course Arrows’ album, but then I followed it up with Japan’s first very Rock & Roll album, released in 1978 (that apparently David Sylvian is embarrassed about). I have it in two different covers. One version had a couple of jumps on it that I couldn’t see in the grooves so I played side one on one copy and side two on my other copy. But I was wondering what else I could play from 1976 and stumbled across this peculiar record. Marianne Faithfull’s first album since the sixties, Dreamin’ My Dreams, also released as Faithless with some alterations. This is Marianne Faithfull before the second breakthrough with the amazing Broken English album, released in 1979. At this point she was definitely unsure where to go because this is mainly a Country album but she’s back and I like it, mostly. It’s the beginning of her cigarette, alcohol and drug voice, which she arrived at through some terrible times of addiction and even homelessness, but through that she gave us some riveting music.

Last album of the night staying in 1976 and an album I haven’t played for a long, long time. The Sensational Alex Harvey Band’s Penthouse Tapes. I saw them twice in Liverpool around this time. I always play Next with The Faith Healer as the key track (covered on A Box Of Birds). But this is a mostly covers album that fits perfectly with Marianne Faithfull’s covers album, but this one is a bit more Rock ‘n’ Roll!

Song of the night in keeping with a theme of Rock ‘n’ Roll is Better Hope You’re Not Alone from the third Noctorum album Honey Mink Forever. Check out the jamming solo at the end, Dare on bass, me on Les Paul.

 

Better Hope You’re Not Alone

Make a wish
And see just what unfolds
Watch the heat rise from the cold
Do you believe all you’ve been told

There’s a myth
That’s going ’round the world
That god can’t be a girl
Black with eyes like pearls

Well I know quite soon things are gonna change ’round here
Can’t you appreciate that everything you want is near
Random taught belief can only generate hate
Well the picture’s crooked
All this madness
All this foolishness
How come you want to desecrate

And if you go out on your own
You’d better hope you’re not alone

Let’s invent
A supernatural being
All knowing and all seeing
Who demands that we are kneeling

Then a small
Difference in the faith
Which will breed the seeds of hate
Until it’s all too late

If you look at it all it really doesn’t make much sense
You tell me you’re good as you’re committing the worst offense
There’s a hell of a lot of attack in your defense

Well the world’s our oyster
So don’t pollute it with your
Stupid, esoteric, narcissistic pretence

And if you go out on your own
You’d better hope you’re not alone

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Honey Mink Forever (2011)