A trip out into a damp Porto today had me re-engage my big coat and jeans but after I’d got down the street I stopped and said to Olivia, “Hold my bag, I’m taking my coat back”. It was too warm for me even if it was supposed to only be 52/11. I could see myself carrying my coat around all day and although I’d got a reasonable distance from home I just thought it would be less hassle, in the end, to take it back. We were on our way to a meeting with a notary who we needed to legitimize some of our documents as we plough through the paperwork for residency – health numbers, getting a bank account and a resident’s card and becoming a legal functioning resident of Portugal. Me going back with my coat meant we couldn’t have any photo stops and moving at pace through the streets we arrived at the office with five minutes to spare, an austere building with fifties decor and a concierge. We got in the lift and came to the fourth floor where a group of people who looked like they had been there since the fifties had gathered and were waiting (one presumes) for their meetings in other offices on this floor, or were they just stuck in time? They had an old original Wurlitzer for entertainment except this wasn’t a jukebox, it was a cigarette machine, deadly entertainment for some and fascinating to see these nasty machines in such ordinary circumstances, still, it was 1958 up there, they hadn’t figured out the truth yet.

The notary was a hip girl on the cusp of thirty in black studded boots with thick, long, light brown hair, getting naturally lighter at the end near her elbows. She wore a light grey polo neck and a long green pleated skirt. She was right-handed and on the same wrist, she wore a chunky gold-coloured watch with a large face – no jewellery, rings or bracelets. She looked through all the documents, confirmed I was who I said I was with my passport as proof and at various times got up from her chair behind the desk and the plexiglass barrier and made copies of important-looking papers. She signed forms, stamped the documents and stapled them together and efficiently drawing diagonal lines on the back of the papers, broken up by some written words before the line continued to the opposite corner. She seemed to know exactly what she was doing and she was nice, friendly, you could see her smile behind her mask, her eyes were warm and helpful. We had to pay 33 euros for her work but she didn’t have change for the 50 euro bill so we went out to break the note and found a bakery nearby with a homemade pastel de nata and a croissant, a small bottle of water and pão de queijo. We went back with the right change and to the amusement of the people from the fifties in the foyer I photographed the cigarette machine and contemplated it like an egyptologist might a rare mummy just discovered in a 3,000-year-old tomb.

We were heading back home across town so there were lots of buildings and doorways, signs, animals, and scenes to take pictures of. Today was the day to go back to the house where we talked to the man in the street and his wife on the phone. I had her number but when I called, a really creepy voice answered and it completely freaked me out. When I tried to speak all I could hear were some voices in the background and the voice that answered wouldn’t say anything but they didn’t hang up, you got the feeling they were still there listening, breathing, it was like a character out of yesterday’s story. So we didn’t go back. Later the phone rang, it was the same number and the same disconnected presence, chilling. My lower back was killing me from walking across town so I was glad to stay in and not be faced with some macabre scene from Tales Of The Unexpected.

I had a sesh with Brian in New Jersey and a song to listen to as well as a song to listen to from Chris who is also in New Jersey. I decided that was enough for today.

Music today came by recommendation from Boydy in England who also confirmed today that any plans we had to tour in the UK in May were now ‘proper scuppered’. At least we have records coming out and we found out today that the autographed vinyl sleeves have found their way through the system and back to Schoolkids Records, so they are on the way to you from tomorrow and into next week. The CDs for autographing are still stuck in customs and Olivia is doing everything she can to sort it out. But back to the music that Boydy recommended – obscure doesn’t really cover it. They seem to be French, the album seems to be from 1969 and the band is called Baba Scholae. It’s a crossover late sixties into Prog record with vocals and instrumental passages. It has been reissued on vinyl and CD and you can find it on Discogs (CD on eBay, download only on Amazon). It is also on Spotify. It’s great, if you like this kind of thing.

Last word from Amazon:

In 1969, legendary psychedelic/early progressive rock band Baba Scholae recorded an album at IBC Sound Recording Studios in London – however, it was never officially released. The band’s leader was Jean-Yves Labat de Rossi, better known as M Frog, the synth and keyboard maestro on Todd Rungren’s early Utopia albums and coincidentally, the founder of the Ad Vitam label. Only three copies (acetates) of 69 where made, but the album’s cult following lasts to this day. Often compared to the work of King Crimson, Pink Floyd, Soft Machine and Gong, Baba Scholae’s 69 is truly a ”lost and found again” masterpiece with music that was years ahead of its time. For a gem like this to have been buried for 43 years is nothing short of extraordinary.

Music Of The Daze

It’s Wednesday, I remember my Mum telling me that all my family were born on a Wednesday. She told me as if it was something to be proud of or something interesting about us, I suppose the parents hold on to short, amusing, and cheerful vignettes for the sake of visitors, and although this one always drew a smile it always seemed rather lightweight in terms of fascinating facts. One might imagine that everyone is interesting in some way, perhaps in ways that they themselves are not aware of or perhaps they keep stories of their achievements quiet, too shy for the accolades. Then there’s those who don’t really feel that they’ve much to tell even though there is always something, even if it’s simply ruminating on the olden days. You never know what old Mrs Adams next door has locked away in her memories or even in her cellar – shafts of light breaking through the narrow slits in the vent, revealing a small gap in the wall.

The door that led down into that dark place was hidden by a heavy curtain. It wasn’t that easy to pull back to reveal the entrance on its rusted rail, always locked, the key was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t exactly a secret that there was a door there it just wasn’t announced. You never knew who might come nosying around. What if a burglar got in, he might not even find it. What if a salesman saw the door from the front porch? What if there was some dry rot in the rafters and someone had to come and inspect the house, we wouldn’t even tell them there was a basement unless they asked. An electrician or a plumber might have to go down there for the stopcock or a junction box but there’d be no moving things around, all the family secrets were firmly hidden at the back in the shadows behind another door that led to a soundproofed anteroom, the single bulb didn’t even cast its light that far.

That day the sun had struggled to rise. It was one of those dewy mornings with a wispy mist floating above the lawn, trying its best to dissipate, hopeful of a better effort by the day, but by 8 o’clock it still lingered. Mrs Adams had already been up for two hours, she’d peeled potatoes and already had them in a pan of water ready for cooking. She still had to go to the local shop for greens but had to wait till 8.30 AM before she took Esmerelda’s breakfast up and then she could quickly go out, she’d be back in 40 minutes which wasn’t too long to leave the house. She’d be distracted by breakfast anyway and the ‘Teasmade’ next to the bed would have gone off, automatically poured her a cup, and saved her a nice warm second.

She checked the tray one more time, two boiled eggs, white toast, a nob of butter, one knife to slice the tops off the eggs and another to butter the toast, a teaspoon, clean folded cloth embroidered napkin, and a small rose cutting from the garden, still dew-soaked. Mrs Adams picked up the tray and headed to the stairs, at the bottom she paused to check her footing and climbed the twenty steps, the turn, and another five, reaching the landing. She placed the tray on the mahogany half console table outside Esmerelda’s room and reached for the key in her pocket. She placed the key into the keyhole and turned it, an old-fashioned lock, it made a distinctive clunk and she pushed the door open to see Esmerelda sitting up in bed, cup in hand, hand-cuffed and smiling. “Here you are dear,” Mrs Adams said and placed the tray across her lap, making sure the two knives were out of reach until she’d put a little distance between them. She then moved closer, took one of the knives and buttered the toast before decapitating the eggs in two egg cups with the other knife. She then took both the knives in her hand and moved backwards. Esmerelda had already turned the light on in the shuttered bedroom with the chord above the bed. Mrs Adams stood for a moment before looking away and without another word, left the room and locked it behind her.

Returning downstairs she swore she could hear a scratching sound coming from behind the cellar door. “Rats,” she thought, “when I go out I must buy some more rat poison” and instead of investigating grabbed her coat from the rack and went quickstep down the garden path to the local shops. She wasn’t gone long, ten minutes longer than usual to get the rat poison, she’d picked up a nice cauliflower, six carrots and was soon on her way home, she hadn’t eaten and still had to prepare a second breakfast, this one a little later. She hadn’t noticed anything odd when she put her key in the front door and closed it behind her removing her hat and coat and placing it on the rack. As she turned, her face turned white as she buckled to her knees on the hallway carpet, slowly raising her terrified eyes to meet Esmerelda and her sister standing hand in hand in the open cellar doorway.

Music today is an action-packed CD of 24 tracks by The Tremeloes called – What A State I’m In: The Psych Pop Sessions. Packed full of catchy sixties sometimes fuzzed-out Pop. This is a must for all fans of Sixties Psychedelic Pop Lite. Brilliant – if you like this kind of thing.

Music Of The Daze

A day of odd twists, wonder and frustrations, time escapes me, you might say it’s my own fault, yes it is. Having said that I must have messed around big time between getting up at 1 PM (went to bed at 4.30 AM) and first sesh with Kadeem in London at 4.30 PM. I remember I did sweep the floor:

I look at you all, see the love there that’s sleeping
While My Guitar Gently Weeps
I look at the floor and I see it needs sweeping
Still, My Guitar Gently Weeps

Then there was the trip to the recycling and the bakery where I dawdled coming back as I took in my surroundings in the Marquês square and noticed a man in a coat that must have been too much for the temperature with a cigarette in his mouth exhaling large amounts of smoke and with a large silver cross on his chest. It seems to be an area where people tend to stand around, mozie, and I imagine when the large Café Pereira, the biggest café in the square, is open, there’s lots of this, social gathering, talking, moving on. I remembered that I feel the cold less in this climate, it’s almost like I’m visiting a planet that has a different gravity and although I’m an alien I can bounce around more fluidly, I am in fact fluid, I’m an alien, I’m green fluid.

After Kadeem, Chris in New Jersey postponed till next week through the sheer maddening workload, I told him not to have a heart attack, the music will save you, I should have told him that too but he already knows. So with no other sesh till 9.30 PM with Jeff in Kent, Ohio, I said to Olivia come on, let’s go. “Okay,” she said, “give me ten minutes”, I pottered and then we left. “Where are we going?” she said, “Nowhere, just out, while there’s still some light”. Outside the door, she took something else to the recycling, and I texted Ahad in New York. A few paces down from the end of our block is a narrow street we hadn’t explored yet. From there you could see the back of our place and it led us down a road into a strange narrow cobbled street with a mixture of sixties flats and some oddly placed quaint, old houses in between, and of course the usual ruins. As we came to the end of the street there was a block of three or four houses in the shadow of the newer apartments and one was noticeable as it was as beautiful as it was abandoned. A man came out of the house next door. I was so taken with the house next door to him, I asked him if he spoke English, he said no so I asked him some questions in Spanish that he was happier to answer – but in Portuguese, so first he didn’t understand me and then I didn’t understand him.

But then, he said in English “My wife speaks English” and after he had dialled the number he handed me his mobile phone. She was lovely, her name was Lucy. She spoke English like someone who spoke really well but hadn’t had to for a while. I told her I was just admiring the abandoned house next door, that we lived in Porto and that we were just walking around taking pictures of beautiful things. ‘Did she know anything about it?’, we talked, she thought that the house was 125 years old and that the people had died and she thought maybe it was now owned by a doctor. But then she said, “I’ll try and find out more about it, come back on Thursday, knock on our door and I’ll see what I can tell you about it”. This is why we moved to Portugal. We said goodbye and I handed the phone back to her husband Cássio, their surname Machado – which means axe and he made the gesture of a falling axe.

We carried on with our blind walk, went around the corner and saw the water tower that we can see from our lounge window and then opposite an amazing huge ruined house. I mentioned that I could see it from our window the other day but we just stumbled upon it. I was staring at it for ages but the light was failing. Then a man came and moved his car from in front of the gate and I said to Olivia that we should take a pic there whilst we still have light. As we were doing that, people walked by and then one of those people looked at me and said “Marty?”. I said “What?”. It was a photographer (Julian) who Olivia had been talking to on the expat site earlier, we just bumped into each other in the street. He was super cool, we have mutual friends. He’d escaped England after Brexit too and we were talking about what a great choice Portugal was and we agreed about the people. We chatted for a while and said goodbye, we’ll meet in the coming days. Small world.

We found our way back home through the newly discovered street circling around to the supermarket and taking advantage of being there before having spaghetti for dinner and watching the worst episode of Deep Space Nine we’ve ever seen. Truly terrible. It was from there to sesh with Jeff in Ohio and then the French and last but not least the frustrations of the day as we try to get you the new album, through storms, viruses, delays, and red tape. Thankfully, some have already arrived, and believe me when I tell you we are trying as hard as we can to get you your record or CD, mystery box, postcard, or illustrated lyric, they’re coming.

Thank you for listening.

Music today started off with Best Of Bee Gees (1969), way before disco and falsetto, what an amazing album, I have it but just found a brand new copy of it and have had it sent to the archive where our friend Aram picks them up and takes them down into the archive to meet their new friends. Today was ‘contrasts day’ so after that, I went mad and listened to Never Turn Your Back On A Friend (1973) by Budgie, Olivia thought it was a woman singing at first. A childhood Rock classic, I knew the album so well. Then I really went mad and played albums by disparate acts or were they? Rhye from Canada, an electronic musician who brings others in, two albums, the newest, Home (2021), and Spirit (2019). Falsetto vocals, some kind of electronic R&B with beats I can’t quite feel but beauteous melodies and tones on either side Supertramp’s Crime Of The Century (1974) and Even In The Quietest Moments (1977). Different worlds but easy to listen to – if you like this kind of thing.

Music Of The Daze

I awoke to the sound of life. Olivia opened the window to hear the cacophony more clearly – the crowing of a cockerel, a mad barking dog, sirens, home improvement drills, seagulls and somewhere what sounded like that distant hum of traffic which seemed unlikely as we enter our sixth week of lockdown. Out of our window, I could see the dense cramping of structures and that that’s recognisable in southern Europe – washing lines in the cities hanging outside the buildings. This is something you never see in northern Europe and although it’s still winter here, it must be the habit of quick-drying in the Mediterranean climate that stays warm for many months. North of here, sure, it gets hot in spurts but there’s always the expectation of rain even in the summer, the message: Dry the clothes inside unless you’re really sure. The clouds were a surreal painting, billowing over a blue backdrop and as I opened the window a light breeze moved the curtains and I imagined them as tall extraterrestrial beings robed in green materials, hovering in the corner. In the bedroom the silhouette of a ladybird on the net that doubles up against the cloth, the promise of spring. In the distance beyond the city, you can see the mountains, the advantage of living high on the fifth floor seeing above the buildings instead of having them looming over you, dominant and suppressive. That escape to the mountains is coming.

Out of the window, I see unpainted buildings, ragged and peeling like they used the wrong paint and patios with attempted gardens, plant pots, and summer chairs. There are mixed trees, firs and palm trees in the same backyard and others I don’t recognise but I was never good at trees anyway. I see a beautiful ruined house next to a row of inhabited coloured blocks. The regular two seagulls sit on the low-corrugated roof, eternally waiting as if they’ll never see the sea again. Pigeons sporadically join them, aware that there’s something going on noticing that they are waiting for what might just be food. Food, the demon food, that which we are over-consuming right now as we stay in and don’t get enough exercise. I did nip to the bakery for pão da avó today but they were sold out and bought three other equally appealing rolls instead, part of the reason I went was to see the day, however brief it might be after late bed last night and late rise today, plus an interview with Naomi at Louder Than War at 4.30 PM, takes away the remaining light. Lastly on the bakery, yes, I did manage to avoid the scrumptious Portuguese cakes.

One of the usual ‘ladies of the day’ strolled around outside on the opposite side of the road and by the recycling bins, there is an old lady in complete contrast who is also often there but with a rather different approach to the universe. She is always brushing the pavement, cleaning up but today the wind took everything out of her dustpan as she approached the bin and blew it all back onto the pavement. But she just left it and walked away, as there was so much garbage around the bins anyway. She has her spot that she keeps clean but usually, a lady like this would be in front of her house where she’d lived for decades but this lady sweeps in front of a communal garage and an arcade, it must be general civic pride.

Later when I looked out of the window again, the clouds had gone and the sky was a rich blue, and there, high in the heavens was a clear moon, partly shadowed but firmly posing the question, ”What the hell is going on in the universe?”. You could see the craters, the scars of a dead world, and as we now reach Mars one wonders will we ever find out about other life in the galaxy either buried in the past or approaching from a distant star careering towards us from the future – friend or foe?

Music today has been Denmark’s Burnin’ Red Ivanhoe, a fascinating blend of Blues, Psychedelia, Rock, Progressive, and Jazz in true Scandinavian style that makes them stand out against bands south and west of Denmark. I started today with their 2nd self-titled album (1970) and it reminded me of Traffic, something there strangely both reminds me and separates me from them, I think it’s the soprano sax and as Traffic fans will remember Chris Wood played flute and sax (but not soprano). Co-produced by John Peel and Colosseum bassist Tony Reeves, the lineup is below:

Ole Fick – electric & 12-string guitars, vocals
Kim Menzer – mouthharp, trombone, tenor saxophone, flute, percussion
Karsten Vogel – soprano & alto saxophones, organ, piano
Jess Stæhr – bass, acoustic guitar
Bo Thrige Andersen – drums, percussion

This is a band that is so off the radar. Although they were formed over 50 years ago and made so much great music there is no English Wikipedia page. This was the first album I heard by them with its prescient title – W.W.W. and with the same lineup it succeeds in this odd mixture of styles. Really great – if you like this kind of thing.

Music Of The Daze

There be blue sky beyond them there hills, I didn’t really need to go out today but I did anyway just to gets me sum exercise. The rain had stopped, it was 56/13 degrees, shorts weather if you are hot-blooded like me. I felt so stifled by being inside today that I’ve resorted to speaking and writing in the accent of an old cowboy from 1872. I’m a long way from swimming 3 miles a week like I was doing in Penzance (when the leisure centre was open). I’m putting on weight, despite my constant trips to the supermarket which are taken just for the sake of going somewhere. We didn’t really need anything today but that didn’t stop us. I’ll need to diet before I can go out on the road or people will be saying, “Ooh, he hasn’t ‘alf put on some weight, remember how skinny he used to be?”. Perhaps that’s the problem, trying to lose weight by constantly walking to a place that sells food that you don’t need. As we get older we get wider, greyer, thinner hair and most noticeably the backs of your hands look older – that’s because they are the most visual part to you. It’s not just pains and mobility, it’s the weathered look and for me, there’s a very public record of those glory days of sparkling youth. It doesn’t matter how much energy I have inside, how clearly my brain is functioning – outside won’t agree to any of it.

In a sesh with Space Summit Jed today we were talking about how cruel nature is that it gives you knowledge but restricts your physical ability to exercise it in the world via a young man’s body. For example, if I wanted to learn Dutch and go and live in Amsterdam, there’s no way I could constantly get up and down those steep and narrow stairs. Haha, if you’ve been to Amsterdam you’ll know what I mean. I could come up with lots of silly examples like this but what you realise is that you have to adapt. It’s why people retire to warmer climes. Can you imagine being 90 and trying to keep warm in January in the north of England? The irony is that the colder climates like Sweden are never cold inside, it’s too cold outside to not have adequate heat in every room, you would die the first week of winter. But in England, it’s that moderate cold with brief cold snaps, this means you can just about survive, not that everybody does but because not everyone dies, it’s not seen as a pressing problem or at least a problem big enough to fix.

In Portugal, in the winter, it’s also cold indoors. There’s no central heating in our flat. We have a couple of heaters and we are told electricity is pricey, we’ll see when we get the first bill. There’s no double glazing, the window in one of the rooms here where the washing machine is doesn’t even close properly. There are no carpets. It’s a wooden floor and this makes the yoga tricky with a mat that’s too small and too thin – you just slip on the floor if you find yourself outside the mat. The yoga mat shops are closed as we go into our 6th week of lockdown. I’m lucky, I’m one of those people that always have warm hands. It was always strange to me when I shook someone’s hand (remember those days?) and their hands were stone cold. Another thing about being here is that the floor is cold, I’ve never had slippers but you need something on your feet and not your outdoor shoes. So now I really feel like a grandfather, but I am a grandfather so I suppose it’s ok to feel like one.

I’m not sad or angry about growing old. I don’t expect to be able to keep up but I am disappointed that I won’t be able to live to see what happens to the world. I’m disappointed that I won’t speak 8 languages like Olivia probably will. But I should be happy that I’ve managed to have a life of making records, touring the world – don’t get me wrong, I’m grateful but knowledge and experience are thirst. I’m not in life to compete, win, succeed, I’m just interested. I want to study archaeology, palaeontology, photography, languages, architecture. Perhaps if I lived for another 150 years I could get a driving license?

Music today has come from Captain Beyond, formed by ex-singer of Deep Purple Mk1 – singer Rod Evans (replaced by Ian Gillan). The band also featured ex-Johnny Winter drummer Bobby Caldwell and two members of Iron Butterfly, Lee Dorman on bass. This lineup released the debut (1972), some copies had a 3D cover. In 1973 they released Sufficiently Breathless (US No.93) with Caldwell replaced by Marty Rodriguez and with the addition of Reese Wynans on keys and journeyman conga player Guille Garcia. After that it fell apart and Evans retired from the music biz, only to resurface with the bogus Deep Purple in 1980, they sued and he was never heard of again. In 1977 Captain Beyond released Dawn Explosion with a different lead singer (Willy Daffern), just in time to be irrelevant as Punk took hold.

Captain Beyond were a seventies Rock band and no one really remembers them except for the involvement of Rod Evans who sang on the first three Deep Purple albums and the singles Hush, a US No.4 hit, Kentucky Woman No.38, and River Deep Mountain High No. 53 in 1969. Captain Beyond do in fact have their moments – if you like this kind of thing. (More about Captain Beyond)

Music Of The Daze