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Oh, you should have seen the beautiful cauliflowers I got today, I almost put them in a vase. The beauty of a fresh vegetable is something to behold, underappreciated. I also always wondered, when is a weed a weed and a flower a flower? Is it like pigeons? If there’s a lot of them they are a pest despite their intelligence, is a pigeon smarter than your dog? One can certainly admire a beautiful bunch of carrots as one can a buttercup, but they are seldom on display. A bowl of fruit can be a display but never vegetables. Daffodils but not dandelions. I’m kneeling by a dandelion lookalike in the pic today, is it cat’s foot or hawkweed? Or something else? Whatever it is it’s considered a weed and not a flower and it just doesn’t seem fair.

The summer rain fell out of the sky, small reminders that summer doesn’t always mean sun, not around these parts anyway. It’s wet, it’s sometimes windy, but at least it’s not cold, you can still make it around in a pair of shorts so you can at least kid yourself that summer is here. With the shops opened up I was so looking forward to the belt shop, but nope, it still hasn’t opened, so that old paisley dressing gown cord continues to be the attractive colourful band around my waist. It doesn’t look bad at all, perhaps similar to a piece of string around an evening dress.

I talked to Terje in Norway today (Hi Terje), he’s a new sessioneer that lives above the Arctic Circle. We had a really interesting talk about music, art, female Surrealists and one thing that relates to all sessioneers – you just need someone to bounce your ideas off. This is a crucial element and just being that person for somebody is extremely helpful. If you are stuck there by yourself in a room with a head full of ideas and skills, you can’t just play to the cats despite their approving purr. The dog will pant its approval too, even the goldfish will give you the thumbs up (don’t tell me you’ve never seen a goldfish with thumbs!). Solo self-motivation and objectivity are difficult beasts and there’s always something drawing you to the fridge. Distractions are all around you and focus and direction are all foiled by interruption from your busy mind. Tangent, this is the problem with the phone, it’s a distraction, you don’t need to check it 400 times a day to see what meaningless nonsense can take your mind off your work. If Dostoevsky had owned a mobile phone there would have been no Crime and Punishment.

Football came back today with the weirdness of no crowd. Man City beat Arsenal 3-0. As the game finished I heard the public address system playing Wonderwall in the stadium, please no, just because the band are fans doesn’t mean you have to do that. There was recorded crowd noise on the Sky Sports broadcast to help us all get into the atmosphere, it was very strange. There was also overdue revolution in the air as the football league supported the Black Lives Matter protests and in both games today Aston Villa vs Sheffield United and this game, all the players and staff ‘took a knee’. It’s such a turnaround, especially in America since the former San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick began taking a knee during the national anthem. There’s also been a feeling over here in Europe that the football authorities haven’t been doing enough against racist fans. I can’t imagine that those monstrous people are going to get away with this anymore.

Had a nice hang with Dare’s brother Dave tonight, too. I’ve known him as long as Dare as our families were friends and work associates. We also had to visit the sea and the recycling and the supermarket. It was so beautiful down there today. The sea was a millpond, the surface of the water was a luminous green and looked as smooth as a lawn. What qualified as a wave was the tiniest of breaks that left no impression on the shore. It was just so still out there. There were three people in kayaks in the bay, one had a fishing rod propped up at the front end but was paddling through the water, I guess he had a system. There was an ominous silence and an invisible mist that was dropping down from the low clouds that were unable to rain.

Last but not least Olivia and I found ourselves in an American magazine called Second Scene with a review of our show at a small venue in Wiesbaden in Germany where we played on our European tour in January and February. You can check it out here: SECOND SCENE Review. It really made us wonder when we would next be able to do so many shows in a row or even play again. I hope that all we’ve been going through with the pandemic will be forever condemned as a nightmare from the past – like racism.

Music today went warm. Help Yourself formed in 1970 in London as the back up band for singer-songwriter Malcolm Morley. To know what kind of music they make take what you will from this unknown quote, “American-flavoured country-rock…to acid-drenched psych”. Seems like quite a leap. Beware Of The Shadows (1972) was their third album and on listening to it I hear great musical moments that I prefer to their more traditional side, but I still like that tinge that makes them eclectic. They remind me of an English Grin (Nils Lofgren), not really countryfied, not really Rock, not really Blues, not really Progressive, but some mixture that makes them both intriguing and unfortunately for them, quite forgotten. The band has an affiliation with Welsh band Man who I’ve written about here before with Morley playing on Man’s Rhinos, Winos And Lunatics, the first album I ever had by them. Man’s Deke Leonard also played with Help Yourself. I’m really liking the second track, Reaffirmation, and American Mother, the third track on Side 2, that typify all these traits all at once and make it all worthwhile for my taste.

Bronco were the same sort of thing, a mixture of all these styles in one. Singer Jess Roden had left the Alan Bown Set and formed Bronco making Country Home in 1970. Robbie Blunt played guitar, he later joined Silverhead for 16 And Savaged (1973), then Broken Glass (1975) with Chicken’s Shack’s Stan Webb and then Robert Plant’s solo band and has worked as a session guitarist since leaving Plant after Shaken And Stirred (1985). Jess Roden made quite a few solo albums, sang with ex Doors Krieger and Densmore on the first Butts Band album (1973) and like many of these warm and musical seventies bands and their personnel, they seem to have disappeared into obscurity. But if you like Free then look out for Well Anyhow on Side 2, really great. These albums are warm treats, trapped in time but overflowing with feeling.

I could only follow this with Free’s Tons Of Sobs (1968). One of the great Blues-inspired Rock bands with one of my favourite guitar players, Paul Kossoff. The genius of this band is their originality despite their influences. Perhaps this is something to do with youth, they were all so young, bassist Andy Fraser was 15, guitarist Paul Kossoff was 17, lead singer Paul Rodgers and drummer Simon Kirk were just 18. There’s an energy, a passion and it always mystified me why later generations abandoned this kind of heart and soul but stuck with the Punk ethic long past its sell by date. I love Free and the loss of Paul Kossoff at the age of 25 is one of the great tragedies. Andy Fraser was one of the unique players that left you stunned by his ideas on the bass (he too has sadly passed away). But when I listen to Paul Kossoff’s playing on Goin’ Down Slow at the age of 18, it floors me.

In 1970 Procol Harum made their fourth album, Home. Apart from a rather dated musical contribution from Robin Trower as the album’s opener (Whisky Train) all the songs bar one are written by singer/keyboardist Gary Brooker with all the lyrics by Keith Reid, whose only role in this band was to write the words. Trower perfected his own ideas later after he left Procol Harum and made a lot of great Rock albums into the seventies with lyrical guitar playing in a power trio and with a fantastic tone, but at this point he hadn’t quite nailed it.

After the mega success of A Whiter Shade Of Pale, a No.1 single in the UK and Canada (Top 5 in the US), they managed to follow it up in the UK at least with Homburg reaching No.6. But luckily for them as the sixties became the seventies it was the time of the album bands and their atmospheric sounds and evocative lyrics sat snugly in that era. I saw them live at the Bottom Line in New York in the eighties or nineties and Gary Brooker’s voice was perfect, I remember seeing Keith Reed in the audience, I wish I’d spoken to him. Home is an overlooked album especially after the wonderful album that preceded it, A Salty Dog (1969). Don’t let the opening track Whisky Train distract you.

In the ex band we had a song called The Dead Man’s Dream on Sometime Anywhere (1994). Here’s the lyric from Keith Reid’s version of the idea, co-written with Gary Brooker composing the music. I have four copies of this album. My French copy is called Whoosh, my American copy has a gatefold with some of the lyrics but not all of them, my Australian copy has a gatefold but no lyrics, my German copy has different artwork and somehow I don’t own an English copy, I must fix that.

As I lay down dying, a floor for my bed
And a bundle of newspaper under my head
I dreamed a dream as strange as could be
Concerning myself and somebody like me

We were in some city, the stranger and me
The houses were open and the streets empty
The windows were bare and the pavements dirty
I asked where I was, my companion ignored me

We entered a graveyard
Searched for a tombstone
The graves were disturbed
And the coffins wide open
The corpses were rotten
Yet, each one was living
Their eyes were alive
With maggots crawling

I cried out in fear
But my voice had left me
My legs were deformed
Yet, I moved quite freely
My head was on fire
Yet, my hands were icy
Everywhere light
Yet, darkness engulfed me

I managed to scream and woke from my slumber
I thought of my dream and lay there and wondered
Where had I been?
What could it mean?
It was dark in the death room
As I slithered under

Song Of The Day is Hide Child by All About Eve from Touched By Jesus (1991), I wrote the words and co-wrote the music. It was a real honour to have a singer with such a beautiful voice sing words that I wrote.

 

Hide Child

I can see through you beyond the curtain
Inside, inside you
Winter is with you, ice in your eyes
This cold night, cold night
Hide child, I am but a breath away
Hide child, as you turn your face away
Hide child, everything is clear to me
Hide child, somebody be near me…bye bye
Evening lingers so I am alone now
So tired, so tired
Finding that my disappointment
Is the only way to follow
The light, the light
Hide child, shadows are your only friend
Hide child, as the shape of night descends
Hide child, the rain around me
Makes me want to cry child
Tell you about me
Some things you choose
You can’t make up your mind
So you lose it in time, in time
Hide child, quietly behind the door
Hide child, who can I be looking for
Hide child, somewhere there I can’t be sure
Hide child, the room is empty
Slow down…
Slow down…

(Willson-Piper, Regan, Cousin, Price)

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)