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Oh what a beautiful day it was today. I just couldn’t wait to get down to the promenade and sit on a bench and gaze at the waves. The sea was two colours, a deep green near the shore and an electric blue further out. It was choppy, the wind was blowing across the surface, but the sun was keeping it warm. I’d already been to get my vege pasty and was looking forward to sitting there eating it. As I pulled it out of the bag Olivia said “Seal!”. And there, dancing in the waves, still mostly submerged was this wonderful creature. You couldn’t actually make out its whiskers but due to previous encounters you could still see them. Suddenly a little to the left, there were two more also submerged, never really popping their heads up, just rolling in the surf. Where we sat is actually called Wherrytown, a small strip between Penzance and Newlyn. It’s where the skateboard park is and there’s always skaters (lads mainly) from quite diverse age groups performing their tricks. The beach here is all stones and after the seals and the pasty I had the urge to go down towards the sea. Walking on piles of loose stones is quite difficult but lots of shaky, unstable fun.

As we sat on the bench, there were two people sitting to the left of us on the beach. It was a woman and a boy, she was wearing, wait for it, a mustard sweater! I’m not sure if it was THE woman in the mustard sweater. They were sitting on a large stone and they were throwing stones into the sea whilst simultaneously throwing an orange ball along the beach for the most energetic Springer Spaniel I have ever seen. The dog raced across the stones with a sure-footed expertise, retrieving the ball in seconds and demanding for it to be thrown again.

She eventually stood up and threw the ball using what is apparently called a ‘dog ball launcher’. You’ve seen them, it’s a long springy piece of coloured plastic that grabs a tennis ball and it whips the ball a much greater distance than you could throw it with your arm. I guess the woman was trying to send the dog running further away so she had more time between throws but he was so lightning quick it made little difference. How the dog didn’t damage his legs or paws running like this on this surface or break his teeth as he banged his snout onto the ball in the stones, I’ll never know.

Olivia took some photos of me on the beach from the bench. At one point I lay down across the stones a little too close to the waves’ reach and got hit from behind and drenched fully clothed. Time to go. The woman in the mustard sweater and her son eventually got up to move about the same time we did. I spoke to her. “Never get a Springer Spaniel”, she said.

So today was our last day of any kind of gathering as we have gone into lockdown for three weeks (at least). Exercise, shops, work, medical needs all ok, anything else not ok. What about the postmen and women, are they allowed to deliver the post? Luckily Olivia went to the post office today to send things. Not being able to gather in groups of more than two seems rather ridiculous when I saw the queues outside the doctor’s surgery and chemist today. The supermarkets are full and I read today that in London and Stockholm reducing the number of trains means that people who have been ordered to work by their employers are crushed together like sardines. How is that social distancing?

I guess Simeon won’t be able to come with the Citroen coffee truck, he is going to be so mad. Today at the truck I was talking to a guy who had seen Jimi Hendrix live at the Marquee in London, Bob Marley at Crystal Palace and Pink Floyd with Syd Barrett. My Queen – Sheer Heart Attack tour, Pink Floyd – Dark Side Of The Moon tour, Deep Purple – Machine Head tour and Black Sabbath – Vol. 4 tour paled into insignificance. Although it’s hard to compare, it’s just the age group and if you are a fan of sixties and seventies music and were a kid from the seventies onwards it’s all amazing, as seeing Jimi Hendrix is for me. I did visit his grave once in Renton, Washington…in fact I’ve visited a few graves, Holger Czukay and Jaki Liebezeit from CAN in Cologne, Nick Drake in Tanworth-in-Arden, Tim Hardin in Turner, Oregon, Jim Morrison in Paris, Sandy Denny in London, Phil Lynott in Sutton, Dublin and Victor Jara in Santago, Chile. Then there’s Stanisław Lem who wrote Solaris in Krakow, Poland. The Grimm Brothers, Marlene Dietrich and Helmut Newton in Berlin, if you go to Père Lachaise in Paris it’s full of famous dead people, Edith Piaf, Chopin, Oscar Wilde, so many more. Then there’s Karl Marx in Highgate cemetery in London, Eva Peron in Buenos Aires. Depressing or respect? A moment by the grave of someone whose work you have admired or whose fame lives on after their death inspires some quite profound reflection.

Visiting CAN

 

Visiting Phil Lynott

 
Today music was the end of Keith West. I simply couldn’t leave it with his last two weaker albums (solo and Moonrider). I had to listen to the Tomorrow album. There’s a cover of Strawberry Fields and as I mentioned yesterday (not so much in these words), but Tomorrow was the revolution of yesterday. This band was to Engelbert Humperdinck what The Clash were to Brotherhood Of Man. On this particular version of the Tomorrow album (a US reissue from 1976) they added the Keith West hit Excerpt From A Teenage Opera.

I was up earlyish today for a sesh with Stephen in Melbourne, but he cancelled (he’s a doctor, lots going on), but I didn’t go back to sleep. So was a little sleepy around 8.30PM. I thought I know Al Di Meola, so I listened to Elegant Gypsy (1977) and then Romantic Warrior (1976) by Return To Forever. That crazy Jazz Rock fusion certainly woke me up.

Alas there’s some new albums to catch up on, I recently bought the new Wire album, Mind Hive. I’ve always been a fan of their records since the seventies. There were three albums, Pink Flag (1977), Chairs Missing (1978) and 154 (1979). I Should Have Known Better on 154 continues to blow my mind. This new album seems to be everything I expect from them, solidly weird. This drove me to the album they put out before this in 2017, Silver/Lead. New records, old records, different styles, aren’t we lucky?

When I was in Liverpool in December working with The Wild Swans I found a couple of cool record stores and one of the albums I bought was the double vinyl version of McCartney and Youth’s Fireman project. It was their third album together (the other two were released anonymously) and the first two have vocals. It’s a real mixture of things and I’ve come to the conclusion that McCartney has his days when he tries and days when he just records what comes out. This project initially gave him some room to experiment, but by the time he reached this, the third album, he was ready to own up to the project and what do we get, an album of weaker songs mixed with cool experiments. It’s the Egypt Station problem, it’s so easy for him to write songs that he forgets that they also have to be good. Now and again he’ll make a cracking album and then he won’t. Let’s be glad of all the great things he’s done which is more than you think post Beatles.

The song from my catalogue today was going to be from the Seeing Stars album but I couldn’t get to the lyrics for that album on the website (fixing it) so let’s go with More Is Less from the upcoming vinyl release of Nightjar this Record Store Day, now set for June 20th 2020.

 

More Is Less

I heard a rumour God was coming back
I said I didn’t know he’d been
Then I was cursed, unloved for what I lacked
Faith in something I’d not felt or seen

Even the angels enjoy a good cigar, they say
Tone deaf drunks sing sweet songs
Parades of people marching for what they are
Convinced that there’s a right and wrong

Boasting of knowledge for all
Seems though we’re crouched at the wall

I suppose we’re clever we build and we create
But we’re a badly designed machine
Uncontrolled and trusting as a snake
Yet loving kind and serene
There’s something I noticed in every walk of life

That people share no policy
Distinguished peasants and lovable rogues
We all beg to disagree
I don’t feel safe in my heart
Where is the end or the start

Desperation, it poked me with its stick
Inspiration threw a feast of thoughts
Desecration the world has just been sick
Delegations kiss long before they talk
Chemical seems more complex
Teachings show me more is less

(Willson-Piper)
Nightjar (2008)

Sessions, sessions, sessions. It was sessions all day for me today. Sunday is usually a big sessions day for me. Tony in Sydney, Doug in Wappinger Falls, Brian in Florida and Mike in New Orleans. Just four today (it was six last Sunday and five so far for next Sunday). I guess Sunday is a day to do this if you work all week and have to deal with the commute, dinner, family, domestic stuff and then getting up early the next morning to do it all again. The weekends must be great! Ha ha, us musician types don’t see the weekends in the same way. If you’re on tour, Friday/Saturday are usually the biggest nights and when you’re not, the significance of the days is not as acute because routine is not the way of life. So for most people, Saturday/Sunday is the free time to get things done, have some fun, catch up with friends, hang with the family, indulge yourself in that secret project in the shed or perhaps speak to me. The sessions are great, communicating about music, analyzing what needs to be done, evolving, studying the creative process and then unleashing the results on the universe. Long may they continue and let me tell you watching the sessioneers progress is inspiring. Also let me tell you, it’s not a competition and if you do this with me and feel that you don’t have the time to put the work in then that’s fine. Loving music is enough, it’s supposed to be fun.

Sad to hear Kenny Rogers died. When I was a kid he sang one of my favourite songs, Ruby, Don’t Take Your Love To Town. Before he became a mega country star sensation he was in a band called The First Edition. This song reached No.6 in the USA and No.2 in the UK in 1969, I was 11 at the time. Younger folks may remember the version by ex Heavy Metal Kids singer Gary Holton and Norwegian Casino Steel, released in 1981, a No.1 single in Norway in 1982. Like his super famous hit, Lucille, Rogers knew how to pick a song with a heartbreaking lyric. Ruby deals with a Vietnam vet returning paralyzed trying to convince his wife not to go out on the town to look for a lover, like Lucille, really tragic. The song was written by Country legend Mel Tillis and recorded initially by another country legend, Waylon Jennings. A slew of other country stars have recorded it. Oddly it was also recorded by Leonard Nimoy and German Synth Pop duo Wolfsheim. Then there’s the other language versions – Nana Mouskouri anyone (one of my dad’s faves)? RIP Kenny, I hear you were a good man.

Our friend and local folky singer-songwriter Libby came into the studio today. She’s been trying to get in here for weeks and today it finally happened. She had a lovely song called In This Game. Olivia played violin on it and I ran in between sessions with half an hour to spare and put a solo on it using Dare’s Gibson. Libby is a gem, when she’s not being creative and spreading kindness, she’s raising money for the less fortunate. You can download the song here and check her out on her bandcamp page that Olivia just set up for her.

I’ve been trying to avoid the news today and trying to forget that there’s an outside. I was thinking about the pharaohs and that when they died they were often buried in sealed rooms with their handmaidens and slaves to accompany them as they journeyed into the afterlife. I wondered if they actually had to be dead, too, to do that or they were allowed to accompany them when they were still alive? I guess the concept of we’re all equal in death if not in life had little meaning in those barbaric times when some were gods and others were slaves. Nowadays some people out there still believe this bullshit.

I was playing records tonight by Freedom (good segue). I guess they became little too Hard Rock for some as 1971 approached with their Through The Years album, but initially they sounded a bit more like a cross between a Beat group and Creedence. On the Freedom At Last album (1970) there’s a cool version of The Beatles’ Cry Baby Cry and The Zombies’ Time Of The Season. Drummer Bobby Harrison was the singer and leader of the group, Ray Royer initially played guitar, they were both members of Procol Harum (Royer played guitar on A Whiter Shade Of Pale). They made one soundtrack album in 1969 for an Italian Movie, Nero Su Bianco (Black On White) directed by avant-garde director Tinto Brass before Harrison completely changed the line-up to Roger Saunders on guitar and Walter Monaghan on bass. By some miracle I have Roger Saunders’ album from 1972. I only ever saw it once. According to the sleeve notes Freedom were still together when the solo album was released but they broke up the same year and Harrison went on to form Snafu with ex Juicy Lucy guitarist Mick Moody, who ended up in Whitesnake would you believe.

In the sixties Keith West was in a band called Tomorrow with Steve Howe who would later join the classic Yes line-up and Twink from The Pretty Things who would later join Pink Fairies. After Tomorrow West had a solo hit with the sixties classic Excerpt From A Teenage Opera. What happened next? Well, he made an album, Wherever My Love Goes (1974), for the German label Kuckuck and then formed the band Moonrider in 1975 before disappearing from commercial sight. The solo album is pretty tame and why Punk Rock was necessary but once he was what Punk Rock was but ten years earlier as a Psychedelic hipster with his finger on the pulse of the vital music of the day. The old people were once the young people.

I also played two albums by Jess Roden’s Bronco, Country Home (1970) and Ace Of Sunlight (1971). Roden had left The Alan Bown Set and after these two albums would go solo. They were some kind of English country version of Free, not as consistently Bluesy. The guitarist was Robbie Blunt who showed up with Michael Des Barres in Silverhead and later played with Robert Plant on those initial post Zep solo albums. What I love about the post sixties and pre-Punk seventies albums is the Rock warmth. Especially the drum sounds and somehow even the shrieking and screaming sounded cosy.

I had an idea tonight that I could add a song to the blog that I’ve either co-written with a project or a song of my own. There’s so many recorded songs out there that it’s hard to know where to start, for me or for you. The saving of the environment will continue to be high on the priority list once we get through the virus fight, as we will, we must, we really have to change the world.

 

Running Through Your Fingers

I believe in wondrous things
I can hear the planets sing
And they glow in reds and blues
And they’re mad at their abuse

And we limp to the future
Bandaged and bleeding

Challenged by the need for sacrifice
Responsibility and such
But when you look at what we’ve got
Is it really that much

Can’t you see
It’s running through your fingers
Running through your fingers
Just take your hands and stop it
Running through your fingers

If I must, I’ll spell it out
Who on Earth could harbour doubt
Can’t you see that just one soul
Is a piece in the crucial whole

I can’t make a difference
Someone else will fix it

When simple acts of habit
Are all you need to change
Just rein in a little bit
Is that so hard to arrange

Can’t you see
It’s running through your fingers
Running through your fingers
Just take your hands and stop it
Running through your fingers

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

I feel like I’m in a Specials film clip. Not only is it a Ghost Town out there but it’s also eerie. Walking past closed pubs on a Saturday night is just weird. To make it worse, it’s cold, a strong biting wind that reddens your cheek and rattles your bones. We opened the big front door in the studio building today, opened all the doors in the archive and the studio and opened the windows and had the wind blow the dust out, freshening the cellar with oxygen. At one point I thought, ooh it’s getting chilly in here, but I didn’t mind. That is, I didn’t mind sitting inside knowing that I could close up at any time. Out there it was more a feeling of let me get back. But it wasn’t just the chill, at 3 o’clock the shops were empty or shut, the streets were empty, Simeon and the Citroen coffee truck had gone before I even got to him. I got my vege pasty from Doreen at Rowe’s bakery and noticed that after days and days of empty bread shelves, there were suddenly 20 unsold loaves. Is that how it’s going to be? Panic buy, buy nothing, run low, panic buy again?

Stupidly, later on I went around the corner to the supermarket to see if I could get some…bread, I found some rolls but that was it. The shelf was empty except for hot cross buns and tortillas. I’m presuming that everyone is freezing the pre-packaged bread. There was just me and another man in the shop at 9PM on a Saturday night. At the till I was talking to Ryan, one of the lads that works there, when a woman who had also ventured in came up to pay, I beckoned her to come and be served. “I didn’t want to get too close”, she said. Ryan said that it was nice to be quiet, not hearing the kerfuffle at the pub across the road, “There’s always an argument”.

We were in the studio with Space Summit again today. Jed found the right drum files and sent them over. I asked him to send them to all three of us, Dare, Olivia and me. WeTransfer just doesn’t seem to want to allow us to download the files here in the studio because of some security protocol. Both Olivia and I tried to no avail so Dare had to go back to his house to download them there. Sometimes the amazing convenient internet is such an inconvenience and it might take a tech to figure out why, not me. Still, can you imagine being able to do this in 1969? It didn’t matter though, did it? The saying is ”Necessity is the mother of invention”. You don’t need much apart from a soul and an imagination.

After sorting out the drums it was time to add extra guitars. Yay! Always an exciting phase in the process (if you’re a guitarist). I’d been playing this soft upstroke on the acoustic (I mentioned it before). I also said that I’d used the same technique on Hotel Womb from Starfish. It felt like this rhythm part needed a little more so I pulled out the same guitar I used all those years ago (my 1966 Rickenbacker 6 string, the one that was broken in half) and I plugged it into a 1962 Vox amp, perfect! I also added a little more Rick Bass and then did some lead guitar using Dare’s AMAZING Gibson ES 345. (Not that my Rick 6 isn’t amazing, too, even if it was broken in half.)

After that I left Dare with it to piece it all together and came into the archive to try and catch up on some emails. What was the musical soundtrack going to be? At 5AM this morning drifting off I’d put on a CD, Bob Dylan’s The Freewheelin’ Bob Dylan, you know the one with the classic album cover of Dylan and Suze Rotolo walking down the street together. It was appropriate for today. So in the archive I thought I’d put on the vinyl version and listen to it again. Dylan albums of the sixties and seventies don’t really get old, the lyrics alone are inspiring, then there’s his unique voice and that part of him that not many seem to mention, his incredible ear for a melody. Like The Beatles, none of the cover versions would exist if it wasn’t for the melody. What an album! You’d know Blowin’ In The Wind (granted way overplayed) but Don’t Think Twice It’s Alright doesn’t get old for me, there’s no point listing them all, but this is also the album with A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.

If you go on to Wikipedia there’s a whole interesting story about the album. I won’t spoil it all for you here but I will share two interesting things about it. Unusually for the sixties this album, Dylan’s second, was recorded over a year-long period. His first album (self-titled and released in 1962) was a rather trad Folk record (I played this last tonight), but his prolificacy and his songwriting skills were evolving at such a rate that the tracks that were going to be on the album were constantly changing. Dylan’s first album had only sold 5,000 copies, not a lot by the standards of those days and Dylan’s A&R man and producer John Hammond was always positive because he saw his genius. At that time Dylan was referred to in the company as ‘Hammond’s folly’. That was soon to change. The track choice was changing so much that when the album initially came out there were four tracks that were hastily changed for the second pressing. The first pressing was recalled to the factory and mostly destroyed but some of them got out. Early copies have no suggestion of the original four tracks. The sleeve and the labels have the newer titles. There is also a controversy about Dylan and the Ed Sullivan show and not being allowed to play one of the songs from the album, censored he walked out on the show and that was one of the tracks that was removed from the album (Talkin’ John Birch Paranoid Blues). The original album is considered to be America’s most valuable, one selling for $35,000. But unless you know the record and play it, you’d never know there was something different about it. The irony is that the songs that were left off were more in the spirit of the first album and the ones added, his more recent compositions, the beginning of his importance as a writer and commentator in his own right, the rest is history. Shortly after the release in 1963, Peter, Paul & Mary covered Blowin’ In The Wind, it became a major hit, selling over a million copies.

The night took some unexpected musical turns and I was playing some records that were a long way from Dylan and not on vinyl, CD or Spotify or on YouTube. It happened because I was trying to find Group 1850’s rare and weird third album Polyandri (1975), made 6 years after their rare and weird second album Agemmo’s Trip To Mother Earth (1968). The only place I could find it was on YouTube. It’s kind of Progressive mad Space Rock. When it finished there were a whole lot of other weird lost albums listed, Farm 1971, Universe, a Welsh band also from 1971 and Pugh’s Place, a Dutch band from 1969. The first two were patchy but had some moments and the third was great all the way through but it led me to listening to one of my super odd 1969 reissues: Morgen, a band named after singer/guitarist Steve Morgen from Long Island, New York. They made this one Psych album and disappeared. The cover is Munch’s The Scream (or The Shriek as it says on the cover art). Essential record for any madman or woman out there.

I followed it with Spooky Two (1969), Spooky Tooth’s second. The classic line-up, Wright, Harrison, Ridley, Grosvenor, Kellie. Mike Kellie found himself in The Only Ones in 1978. I met him when I was a night porter in Manchester, lovely man, sadly he died not too long ago (2017). Greg Ridley went on to Humble Pie (died in 2003). Wright and Harrison had solo careers and Luther Grosvenor became Ariel Bender and joined Mott The Hoople and then Widowmaker. Spooky Two was Heavy Rock of the day, reviewed not so favourably then as “Overwrought”, just how I like it. I seem to have no problem playing Dylan’s first after Spooky Tooth. I hate to state the bleeding obvious, but some music might not be your cup of tea, but all music is talking to someone.

I had a nice phone call tonight from my old mad friend Andy Cousin, bassist and co-writer from All About Eve. We spoke for an hour about this, that and the virus. It made me think about how talking on the phone was something my parents were always hassling me about – “Get off that phone!”. Ha ha, I can still hear it now. I guess in those days the charging system was quite different to now. The worst was on tour when you were in a hotel, it was actually too expensive to call home. That was their criminal rates, but in the seventies calling your mate was considered something to be careful with. You got in big trouble when the bill came and you’d been using the phone when your parents were out.

Finishing off here with Dylan’s really different and trad first solo album, but I have to go to bed, it’s already 3.15AM and I have a sesh with Tony in Sydney at 10AM. Then our friend Libby is in the studio at 12.30PM and Olivia or I might have to play. More seshes, 3.30PM Doug, 5.30PM Brian, 7PM Mike. So stay busy like me, record your thoughts in a diary or do what I do, talk to the people of the world, somebody is listening, it doesn’t matter how many, same as music.

The steely green sea, angry, waves breaking impatiently before they reach the shore. Clouds of sand flare up just below the surface, the white froth is a seeping wound in the sea’s skin. The wind biting your face, a soft push in your back when you turn around. No boats on the horizon, no sea birds, all life has deserted this harsh twilight landscape. Back on land the same thing is happening, fewer people than before, a grey mood in the air. The seagulls and the crows aren’t gathering on the beach, the people can’t gather in the pubs or the restaurants. It’s unnatural. No birds in the sky, a prisoner in your own home, no revelry, no laughter and joy, just fear and anxiety. Nature conspiring, mad at us. We are just waiting without knowing what to expect, unable to imagine how the future will look in a week, a month, a year. It’s unprecedented, the authorities are making decisions for you. You’re not sure if you believe them, but then you look at Italy and the unease returns. But then you think of all those people losing their jobs, people who can’t survive, already struggling and now faced with the greatest struggle of their lives, fighting for survival and who is their guide? Should they just know how to react? What to do? The guidance comes in soundbites. Who has the manual with the instructions on how to be? Will nature forgive us, give us another chance?

Today the pool closed. I swam my three miles and some this week but that’s the end till who knows when. As I’m swimming up and down, ticking off the laps, I’m thinking this is probably the best defense against a respiratory attacking virus, that is fitness, healthy lungs. There’s nothing disease likes more than inactive bodies, even inactive minds. This was my defense, taken away from me, leaving me to stimulate my body on the carpet in front of the computer – it’s not the same. Then it makes you think of all those people who were going through hell when we were all living it up in our cosy homes and secure jobs, a regular income, friends, aspirations, dreams to fulfill. Perhaps now we can get a very small sense of what it’s like to be a refugee, except they were fleeing from war and persecution, at least we still have our families sleeping safe upstairs and the flat screen TV. Perhaps now we’ll realize how lucky we have been. At least we are not being forced into uniform and sent to the front with a weapon, killing for survival, now it’s just a scrap over a toilet roll. Not a bad option considering how it could have been. Still, we don’t know how it will be, we can only hope.

We didn’t go to bed till 6AM yesterday but today I awoke to lots of responses to the Bandcamp mail and giving us the opportunity to make the most of our online catalogue of music and the occasional t-shirt, tote bag or vinyl record. So thank you so much to everybody who has taken the opportunity to purchase something. The rest of the day was already fading due to the extremely late night and by the time we had finished in the gym/pool, by the time Olivia had returned from the launderette, by the time I had got back from taking the recycling and getting the shopping it was already 8.30PM. Jonas dropped in to say goodbye (and pick up the MOAT record he kindly bought) as he makes the trek back to Germany, travelling through a deserted ghostly Europe. By the time we had eaten and watched the latest episode of Picard, washed up, put the clothes and the shopping away, by the time I sat down to listen to the sessioneers’ music that they have sent me, it was already 1AM. Here I am now in the studio putting records on while I write and before I turn my attention to Tony, Mark, Jed and their work. Lots of emails to answer, too, the whole idea of this being a time where one would be looking for something to do is certainly not true for me. In the studio tomorrow working on Jed’s Space Summit project. Sessions Sunday and Monday, I am extremely busy as things get cancelled around me. Nicklas not coming, Jerome not coming, Atlantaeum Flood not coming, Sessioneer Noel not coming, Canada almost definitely not happening, Swedish Anekdoten rehearsals not happening and then what about June and July and our trip to America in August, the new MOAT album, Record Store Day, Salim’s album, US dates, UK dates, Olivia’s hosting of Night Of The Prog, working with Arno in France, everything up in the air and yet busy as hell.

It’s been extremely broad on the record front and in three formats and not a lot of time to listen to much. I started off with Spotify as I was running around the studio and I listened to William DuVall from Alice In Chain’s acoustic solo album, just him and a guitar. Interesting hearing a powerful Rock singer accompany himself with a quieter instrument. I followed it up with what is a brand new artist to me, Margaret Glaspy. I am on a Rough Trade records mailing list and they wrote some nice stuff about here so I checked her out. She has a new album coming called Devotion, on Spotify there is only one track but there is another album called Emotion And Math which I really liked. A certain intensity, like her voice and songs, she plays the guitar and fiddle (although I didn’t hear fiddle). The new album is allegedly different but I’m really liking the one I heard. After that I went mellow with a Dionne Warwick Classic CD collection, those Bacharach/David songs, those classic arrangements and her voice.

Before I go to Sessioneers’ music I thought I’d write and listen to one album. I picked Group 1850 and their Psychedelic Dutch journey into that sixties wonderland that must have been an amazing transition from the world as it was to the Acid, Peace and Love generation of the era. Having just discovered their 2nd album Paradise Now on our recent trip to Concerto Records in Amsterdam I ordered a reissue of their first album online. The album originally came in a 3D sleeve with the glasses included I believe and is called Agemo’s Trip To Mother Earth (1968). Put it this way, whatever you imagine it might sound like, it does.

Ok now I’m autographing MOAT vinyl and Noctorum CDs before I get into Sessioneers land. I’ll be back before the night’s end.

It’s now three hours later and I’ve been listening to Mark, Tony and Jed’s music. The ongoing process of creation, production, arrangement, exchanging ideas, personal taste and direction. There’s a lot of ways to hear the same thing, hopefully we are on the same page. Ok one more album before sleep. I’m in the studio tomorrow and it’s already 4AM. So the pic is of me working with the bass on the Space Summit track that we will continue with tomorrow. The album is the second Group 1850 album Paradise Now (1969). One of the great album finds in recent times, especially an original version.

Get into your books, get into your music, don’t just watch the screen in this difficult time, stimulate your brain in different ways. Don’t sit on the couch eating and watching Netflix (only part of the time). Read, think, exercise, stay alive. This is your chance to break into another world of creativity and inspiration. See you out there.

Oh the days go by, the crazy people stay crazy, the adults inspire little confidence, the sane people try to stay sane. There’s no bread or pasta or toilet rolls in the shops. Everything is cancelled and nobody knows who to trust, what to believe, who to blame, who you can touch, what the dangers actually are. Italy is out of control, but China seems stable. Where are we? Anxiety level is running high, everyone is nervous and this seems like just the beginning as schools in England close tomorrow. Those poor kids, the fear the older people have to face. According to this link, the normal flu has taken 22,000 lives in the USA already this year from all age groups. With this confusing statistic in mind in the wake of Corona, I’m moving on to life.

On a positive note Bandcamp are waiving fees for one day only, kindly giving us musicians the chance to take advantage of an income source. So we have just added Noctorum’s Afterdeath EP for download. You can also download all four Noctorum albums, Seeing Stars and solo records, check it out to see what’s available. On the physical, we have also added some t-shirts, MOAT’s first album on vinyl (with free CD) and some In Deep tote bags. In Deep and Afterlife t-shirts have very limited sizes (all small and just one XXL). But we do have a range of Noctorum Honey Mink Forever t-shirts. Yay!

www.martywillsonpiper.bandcamp.com

So, today: Dare and I were in the studio, working on the Space Summit project, the collaboration with sessioneer Jed from Minneapolis. There was a whole lot of Ed’s drum stuff to sort out (still ongoing), but we put that on one side and proceeded to add guitars, bass and keys. We had an issue with my acoustic six. Dare was about to string it when the peg that holds in the bottom E string sheared off at the head and sat fast in the bridge and became immovable. He had to take it to the local luthier who has the tools. Between them they managed to force out the broken peg and Dare put on a new set of lovely silky smooth Elixir strings. So I went into the live room to play the rhythm part for the song. It’s interesting because it’s mostly upstrokes played with the pad of your finger. Try it, it creates a lovely texture. You can hear the sound on Hotel Womb from Starfish, although it is an electric guitar on that track (my Rick 6 from 1966).

Rickenbacker bass was next and I played with Jed’s ideas, redid them and came up with some new bits. Then I took out my 1965 Rickenbacker 12 string (so lovely to play) and replayed Jed’s 12 string guitar parts more accurately. It’s interesting working this way, working remotely. We have me coming up with the original idea on Skype (wherever I am). Jed then turns the idea into a song with lyrics, melody, vocals, other instrumental ideas and a vague arrangement and then he sends it to us. We keep his lead vocals and some of the guitar parts but change the bass, redo some guitars and add some more. We work on the keyboard ideas and treat them the same as the guitars accept Jed or Dare usually play them, I’m good with one finger. We’ll continue and hopefully if we get the drums sorted have it mixed by Saturday evening. That will be four songs down, six to go. 2021 seems almost realistic for a release.

There was a card from the post office for me to go and pick up a package. It was the first Gnidrolog album, a sealed reissue, very reasonably priced at £15.99. The album is called, wait for it, In Spite Of Harry’s Toenail. On one hand you can see why it didn’t really happen for them in 1972, but by this title you also might be able to see how they formed the controversial punk group Pork Dukes some years later.

Apart from a trip to the shop to buy 50 toilet rolls, 18 packets of pasta and 500 bottles of hand sanitizer, I was in the studio all day and didn’t finish till 11.30PM so I didn’t get to the album listening till late. Starting with an absolute classic obscurity, Afreaka by Demon Fuzz. They were in fact formed in England with members that had immigrated from Commonwealth countries. They are Progressive, Psychedelic Soul, Jazz and Funk all rolled into one. A must have if you ever see it as a reissue. Good luck finding the original album. I bought it in a record shop in Cologne called Nunk where I have got to know the owner Uwe a little bit. Cool dude, came highly recommended by him and he was right.

After that I looked through some of the records in the new reissues section that I haven’t got to yet and pulled out Seasons Changing by Byzantium. A few later luminaries were originally in the band although they are perhaps better known as working with people you know. Chaz Jankel (keys, guitar and vocals) worked closely with Ian Dury. Mick Barakan AKA Shane Fontayne played guitar with Springsteen, Ian Hunter, Joe Cocker and loads more. Robin Sylvester played bass with Christine McVie and engineered a few Rory Gallagher albums. Robin Lamble played with Al Stewart. David Hentschel became a producer engineer, working on Elton’s Goodbye Yellow Brick Road, allegedly George’s All Things Must Pass (although I can’t see a credit on the record but then again I played on Tom Verlaine’s The Wonder and didn’t get a credit either), Genesis’ A Trick Of The Tale and many, many more. So quite a bunch. They say they are Psychedelic, well this, their 2nd album, isn’t. It’s more sometimes Progressive and other times just, well, a seventies band. If you expect Psychedelia and heavy Prog or Folk Prog it’s not for you. If you expect an interesting seventies band, it’s great.

Next, Black Mountain’s newest record, Destroyer (2019). They come from Canada and I’m a fan. They’re an odd band, Rock, seventies sounding, heavy, not so heavy, a male and female vocal pairing with Rachel Fannan and Stephen McBean. Songs with lots of instrumental passages, riffs, mellotron. Stephen McBean is also in Pink Mountaintops. This led me to a heavy mood and I found Alice In Chains’ Rainier Fog from 2018. I always liked the Layne Staley harmonies on the early albums. Sadly he killed himself with drugs at the age of 34, but they found themselves a replacement in William Duvall and have followed the same path with guitarist and co-singer and songwriter Jerry Cantrell at the helm. Original bassist Mike Starr also died of a (prescription) drug overdose, he was 44. Alice In Chains are a little too heavy for most people I know but I always thought that the idea of this grungy sound with dark melodic harmony vocals was an interesting one. Plus, they made an EP which was more acoustic orientated called Jar Of Flies that I LOVE!

Farewell to the night with the appropriately titled and absolutely great Stupid Dream by Porcupine Tree from 2005. Perhaps a better title for now would be Realistic Nightmare.

Stay aware, stay awake, be good to yourself and everyone else. Write songs, write words, write poems, sing, you have no choice.