Have you ever walked outside on what you consider a cold day and seen a man in shorts and thought to yourself how is he not cold? Well today in Penzance where it’s hot, I keep on seeing people in coats. How can they not be too hot? So, what’s going on here? If our average body temperature is 98.6°F (37°C) and it fluctuates either side of that figure, then the difference between one person’s perceived hot and cold is a much greater difference than fluctuations in body temperature. So, what is the criteria for whether you feel the cold or feel the heat? My hands are always warm, I could be submerged in a fridge in Antarctica in the middle of the night, clenching an ice cream in one hand and an icicle in the other – and my hands would still be warm. It’s a strange thing when you shake someone’s hand and it’s cold and it’s probably strange for them when they do the same and it’s warm. (As the handshake is now a thing of the past it won’t be anything to ponder.) Still, usually the girls get colder quicker than the men or is it just about body size? Small skinny men must get colder than big weighty men? Or are we all just different? I have friends who love the heat, I try to avoid it. I struggled living in Australia, it was just too hot for me, it’s not that I was longing for bleak, freezing grey, thankless climates, I was just worn out by the stupefying heat. Perhaps it was because I grew up in the north west of England and had no experience of such extreme weather. (I was already in my twenties when I first went to Australia.) I inherited this from my Mum, she was always complaining about the heat even here in England, so you might say that my Mum was a hot woman – explains everything!
The flowers are growing out of the walls, isn’t there something philosophical about that, like the hare and the tortoise? This hard, intimidating, concrete barrier separating a piece of free ground, solid stone protection, impenetrable unless of course you are a little delicate pink flower that can grow out of your muscles, slip between the cracks in your armour, beautify your blank grey exterior. It was almost like it was reaching out, begging for peace and tranquility, a plea to notice the miracle that is nature and its ability to overrun man-made monstrosities.
Despite it being hot out there today Dare and I had a lot of studio planning to do. We needed to listen to the Space Summit album to consider the sequencing, get the masters to Joe at the mastering suite and then Jed and Olivia and I had to discuss everything artwork. It doesn’t stop when you hit the last note. But what is a mystery in this pandemic is release dates for these finished albums, campaigns to replenish the coffers as we invest in the making of them and what about touring?
But as the US hits the tragic 100,000 figure of death and with everything starting to open up in the world, where will we be this time next year with the virus, with the leaders? Politically the whole world will be changed if Trump loses, what’s happening in Hong Kong right now? In Israel Netanyahu is reelected in a coalition as he goes to trial for corruption. Syria, Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Afghanistan, Myanmar, refugees worldwide, Bolsonaro in Brazil just seems so out of control. Armed right wingers in the US threatening governors and now outside of all the politics, the storms are coming, hurricane season is here (June 1st – November 30th).
The worst thing about the world right now is we can’t get the damned truth about anything so I think we must follow a simple rule, if you’re not sure, don’t commit, if you don’t have all the information don’t fill in the gaps. What you suspect is true and what is actually true are not the same thing. You can’t know what’s right unless you know the facts (and the alternate facts, ha ha), you need to know the agendas of the experts. Nothing is black and white. I long for the truth.
Music today has seen me wondering what my musical compadres have been listening to and today it was Tim P and his major influential albums, Mahavishnu’s Visions Of The Emerald Beyond (1975), Billy Cobham’s Spectrum (1973), The Rolling Stones’ Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out (1970) and Peter Gabriel (1980).
The Stones’ album, considered one of the best live albums of all time, has six songs with the vocals re-recorded in the studio, extra backing vocals and added guitars on Little Queenie and Stray Cat Blues, but who cares (“Charlie’s good tonight, isn’t he?”). Nobody cares too much about all the overdubs. On Thin Lizzy’s Live And Dangerous (1978) there were countless overdubs, but when a promoter found out that ELO were using tapes on their Out Of The Blue tour in the same year he brought a lawsuit against them. It seems a bizarre response from where we are now.
You might remember Milli Vanilli (Rob Pilatus & Fab Morvan), they incensed someone, I’m not sure who? They won a Grammy for best new artist in 1990 and had to give it back as they were not actually singing on the record. (Pilatus most probably died from an overdose over the scandal, he was 32.) Since when has showbiz cared about the tricks or the truth? For some reason nobody cared who played on Pet Sounds.
Tim’s choices today have obviously been chosen from a drummer’s perspective and Billy Cobham’s Spectrum is considered one of the classic Jazz Fusion masterpieces. Some people might be surprised to know that the guitar player on this album was Tommy Bolin, and also features Jan Hammer on keys and Lee Sklar on bass (mostly). Mahavishnu’s Visions Of The Emerald Beyond is another Jazz Fusion classic with another amazing drummer, Michael Walden, the inimitable Jean-Luc Ponty guests on electric violin.
Last but not least Tim’s fourth choice was Peter Gabriel’s third solo release (1980), a groundbreaking drum album – that sound, the lack of cymbals. It was the return of Phil Collins to Peter Gabriel’s world and also featured Jerry Marotta. Can you imagine the restraint it must have taken for a drummer not to hit a cymbal?
Song Of The Day is Piccadilly Circus In The Rain from Noctorum’s The Afterlife (2019). The reason is because this song was originally conceived with machine drums and one day on a playback we went, no, no, no, this has to have real drums. Some songs suit machines, some songs don’t, some songs take a while to tell you.
Piccadilly Circus In The Rain
It’s getting darker here
And the bus it never comes
And when it does there’s always two
And in the park nearby
A mother scolds her son
The child cries but love is true
Autumn tints the leaves
Your collar hides your neck
A swelling cloud stuck in the sky
There’s no creative work
Amongst the swarming bees
As you struggle to survive
Piccadilly Circus in the rain
Ealing Common, Acton Lane
Ten million mortals in a squeeze
London brings you to your knees
Up with the lark they say
The traffic’s getting thick
But petrol drove the birds away
The fumes inside your lungs
It’s enough to make you sick
Your landlord takes all of your pay
Piccadilly Circus in the rain
Ladbroke Grove to Chancery Lane
Weary faces, blank and cold
Getting tired, getting old
Piccadilly Circus in the rain
Ealing Common, Acton Lane
Ten million mortals in a squeeze
London brings you to your knees
(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – The Afterlife (2019)