What a lovely morning for going down to Unilabs for a blood test. What else would I rather be doing? Perhaps a croissant or an espresso in the corner of a lively square, people watching, or reading a book with hours to spare. But, no, blood test wins. But in true Portuguese style, I had the test at 10.30 AM, and by 3 PM I had the results, I’m alive. From there I took the subway to the pool and did my mile plus, earlier than usual, and with the threat of water aerobics classes I began, somehow they didn’t show up so I swam with no frightening soundtrack. They were finishing when I started with their horrible booming speaker and shouting out commands to a field of ancient arms and legs in one last gasp to stay a little longer on the planet, or more likely to socialize. When I was done swimming another team arrived with metal bikes that they submerged into the water with the worst banging music I’ve ever heard, somehow I managed to avoid nearly all of it. A day of potentially bad recipes with tasty results.

I walked back from the pool through the hot Porto streets, it was the hottest day so far and it was wearing me down. As I got closer Olivia was coming the other way on a search for fire extinguishers for The Archive. By the time I got in, I felt like I had heatstroke but then I wasn’t 100% anyway. I’d been to the pharmacy on the way to the pool to get some throat tablets and cough medicine, a strange brew in contrast to the weather. Lunch made me feel a little better but not much, having said that I began to improve by my first sesh with Fred in Minneapolis, and then by NJ Brian I was feeling fine. I was ready for Arsenal/Chelsea and two hours of analysis. When it was over I spoke to Salim in Texas, it’s his birthday tomorrow, May 3rd, don’t forget.

Olivia had found me two weird part birthday prezzies on her adventures, a strange wooden half creature, half walking stick, half ornamental carving (yes, it had three halves), and a strange orange fluorescent tube lamp that did wonders for the studio vibe and led you straight to the Nag Champa. Then in perfect contrast again and for the second time in two days my eye distortion gave me the free diamonds and the promise of a dull ache. When it happened yesterday I went straight to bed, today my medicine, my cure, was to sit in the legendary red chair and listen to four sides of David Sylvian’s double vinyl album Sleepwalkers (2010/2022), a collection of oddities and collaborations.

But despite my love for everything Sylvian, today’s music was the Sigur Rós RSD vinyl edition of Kveikur (2013), another wonderful record from the Icelandic dreamers.

Music Of The Daze

Today I’m happy to finally share the Afridi/Willson-Piper album In The End, The Birds Will Sing in its entirety. Ahad has been releasing singles over the last couple of years but now the whole album is available on your favourite Martian streaming sites. It’s always interesting to hear the singles in the context of the album as the songs that you don’t know catch up with the ones you do. The album was produced by Dare and me at The VIP Lounge studios in Penzance with Eddie John on the drums and me on guitars and bass with Olivia’s eye on the artwork (and strings) and all of us helping with Ahad’s many ideas. Continue reading for Ahad’s short overview which he wrote as an introduction for those who don’t know the project. Enjoy!

Afridi/Willson-Piper is a collaboration between singer-songwriter Ahad Afridi and guitarist Marty Willson-Piper. Their music is guitar-driven rock-pop with a vintage vibe. Their debut album “In the End, the Birds Will Sing” is OUT NOW!

Ahad Afridi mixes shades of light and dark into a palette of hope and positivity. His music is filled with melodic guitar riffs influenced by The Beatles, 80s college rock, and literary storytellers like Bob Dylan and Lou Reed.

Marty Willson-Piper is best known as a lead guitarist, singer/songwriter and occasional bass player with disparate acts – the church (“Under The Milky Way”), All About Eve, later Seeing Stars and The Saints, covering psychedelia, goth and punk.

Ahad and Marty met during Marty’s sessions for songwriters and guitarists. But actually, their ties go back much longer…Ahad bought his first guitar and taught himself to play after attending a Marty Willson-Piper solo concert.

Both artists are world travelers and many of the songs were written in the skies between NY, Istanbul, and London. It took the pandemic to bring them to earth and get in the studio. In fact, Ahad finished writing the album while in quarantine near the Black Sea.

The album title “In the End, the Birds Will Sing” was inspired by the birds singing outside the window every day, no matter the circumstance.

The full album is now available on Spotify, Apple, Amazon, Bandcamp and other digital channels. A physical copy may be available in the future.

Regards – Ahad

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Sunday sesh day x3, Tony, Abby & Nick, and Rajan, Sydney, Santa Fe and Brooklyn. Somewhere in there, it’s the snooker final day (Selby 147), and Liverpool/Spurs. Some say sport and music don’t mix but then there’s New Order’s World in Motion from the 1990 World Cup campaign and who can forget (How Does It Feel to Be) On Top Of The World (1998), written by Ian McCulloch and Johnny Marr and performed by Echo and the Bunnymen, Ocean Colour Scene, Space, and the Spice Girls. I can’t remember how World in Motion was received but the McCulloch/Marr theme was pretty much panned by everyone. It seems that the most-liked England football song is with comedians Baddiel and Skinner’s Three Lions, with music by Lightning Seeds’ Ian Broudie for the 1996 Euros. Not sure what happened in 1992 and 1994. I have a football song, The Striker, on, you guessed it, Noctorum’s Record Store Day release Offer The Light.

I ordered The Groundhogs’ Crosscut Saw (1976) from Rough Trade in England today as my order from Tubitek didn’t come to fruition since all the records in the box were damaged due to terrible packaging by the senders (nice work folks). I still can’t figure out why people go mad for records on just one day a year.

Outside our window there were lads hanging out drinking beer, probably checking out the ladies of the day, but leaving their cans on the window sill and in the gutter, did I do that? I think I was always quite litter-conscious and in some situations I will pick something up off the street and throw it in a bin, risking who knows what. We have big windows and they have stuck-on opaque squares so you can’t see in. At some point, we will replace these as they’re kind of ugly and we have seen some stained glass window transfers that do the same job but are seriously more aesthetically pleasing. I’m not sure they will deter the lads and the beer though.

I’m managing to keep my mega Duolingo streak of 1050 days, but I must start with Portuguese, this is all Spanish and French.

Music today has been more Thin Lizzy and Jailbreak (1976), The Boys Are Back In Town, Emerald, Jailbreak, The Warrior. The guitars, how Phil held his bass so high and played with a pick, the vocal delivery, melodic. Carry on like this and I’ll be listening to UFO.

Music Of The Daze

I had to get up and get to the hotel, have a shower, and deliver the keys back to reception before noon today. We had to book somewhere for when we came back from the British tour (sorry Wales) because the new headquarters weren’t ready yet. To get the deal on the hotel we had to book it for a month, so although we haven’t been staying there for the last ten days we still had it to go to take a shower. I was out of there in time, dropped the keys off, and waved farewell to torture chamber showers, collapsing beds, shrunken rooms, and actually, really friendly people.

We will be travelling soon and our Portuguese bank does a travel insurance deal which we wanted to get in place before heading out into the big bad world again. So we took the train to Gaia over the Dom Luís I bridge with the amazing view of Porto. We went by luthier Jorge’s new workshop which was close by but it seemed like the new gates were closed and he wasn’t there. I got a message later saying he had been there, I should have knocked. Jorge is looking after my guitars till we get all the security sorted on the new place – sentries, private army, booby traps, gun turrets, and the like.

We came back via Tubitek, it seemed they had found me the McCulloch album Slideling (2003) after all, the U2 – Songs Of Surrender box (2023), and the two latest Curve reissue vinyl EPs. We met João in there who runs intimate shows at the Hard Rock Café in Porto and he wants to put a gig on for us. Jay Aston from Gene Loves Jezebel has played there and Nick Oliveri from Queens Of The Stone Age. Sounds like the right place to play here in Porto. Talking of playing here, The Mission are here tonight plus the other Gene Loves Jezebel, Michael Aston’s version, silly innit.

Back to The Archive to await the delivery of a piano from Leipzig. It didn’t come from Leipzig today, we think it came from Leipzig about 100 years ago. It only has one dodgy key, and needs a tune but having said that it’s not so bad. Great to have a real piano in the place, especially a nice old one from the A. H. Francke company. We were wondering how we were going to get it lifted out of a van on a busy Saturday street and up some steps. There were cars parked all along the street until all of a sudden the car right outside moved. I ran inside and got three chairs and reserved the spot. They showed up with the piano an hour later than expected (probably struggling to get it in the van at the other end). I was standing in the street waiting (Olivia can’t because it’s the ladies of the day and night street). Whilst standing there a police car came by, and the policeman saw the green chairs reserving the spot, he said, “What’s all this then?” but in Portuguese. I explained in my best Spanish that a truck was imminent and was delivering a piano into the premises, he accepted the reasoning and drove on, phew.

The van arrived with two guys. I’d already spoken to the fellows across the road at the restaurant, letting them know that any help would be most appreciated. As it happened the van pulled into the parking spot and then a car pulled in behind them and asked me if it was alright to be there as they could see the piano in the van and the task at hand. Then they said, “Can we help?”. Haha yeah, you sure can! Between their help, the van guys and one of the guys from the restaurant and of course my half-hearted help (my hands issue), we got the piano in and it’s a beautiful thing, the first thing to see when you come through the door.

Music today has been the strangest of things, Mike Oldfield’s demos for Tubular Bells. Fascinating, who could have predicted what would happen from here?

Music Of The Daze

Schoolkids Records not only has some RSD Noctorum – Offer The Light vinyl but also has a one-month sale on the CD version ($5.99). It seems that this price is about right for older CDs, as they fall from grace, having said that the word is that they are starting to sell more and the vinyl sales resurgence is a reality – as it is for cassettes. Did I even see someone releasing an 8 track? I wonder, will they be onto 78s soon?

Noctorum – OFFER THE LIGHT (LP)
Noctorum – OFFER THE LIGHT (CD)

Read Dare’s MISSING SLEEVE NOTES for OFFER THE LIGHT here.

After a very late night last night (after 5 AM) I did my best to stay asleep as long as possible and had breakfast for lunch. I opened the front door to see a copy of Shindig! in the mailbox and put the snooker semi on. I was possibly going to meet American fans on holiday on a cruise, Chris and his wife Barbara couldn’t make it in the end as their time in Porto was restricted to a timetable probably imposed by the tour. So, I didn’t manage to get out and soon Australian builder Brad (yes, really) was coming to get some keys and talk about renovating the space. We’ve done some things ourselves, like getting the security gates, a working toilet, internet, cold water and electricity, but walls need rendering and painting, floors need renovating, the bathroom, the kitchen and the distribution of power sockets that will keep us safe from an overload as I play hot licks on one of my Rickenbackers.

We hope to go South American with the colour scheme, that is sunflower yellow, turquoise, fire engine red, and Greek blue. We may be mistaken for a kindergarten but after all, this is a serious playground for music, a library of preservation and inspiration, a library of learning, and a creative space where people can come to unleash their ideas or find inspiration in the ideas of others. Yesterday I got a message from Luke in Ireland asking if I wanted his collection of old music papers from the late seventies into the eighties. He is coming to Porto and will bring them in extra suitcases. I saw a 1977 NME in the pic. Carl in Wales has lots of Record Collector magazines and Graham in Scotland also asked me about this. Mark in Brighton brought mags to the London show. We have had lots of record donations, too many to mention here, but most recently Mikko found me the new 22-Pistepirkko album (2023), Thomas has found me the Ian McCulloch – Slideling LP (2003) from RSD. William in Houston found me the Beatles‘ White Album (1968) from Indonesia with the banned and omitted track Happiness is a Warm Gun. Noel a while back donated a whole collection from him and his late friend. I’ve been donating for years, it’s pricey keeping it up but I’m doing my best to put all the money that would have gone into cigarettes and alcohol into records (and some).

At 6 PM I had a sesh with NJ Brian and was trying to get a conversation with Stephen at Schoolkids Records in between Brian and the next sesh with Noel but we were unable to make contact. It seems that the Noctorum album made it to a lot more places in the world than previous RSD albums did. I know it wasn’t everywhere including in places where you might think it would be, but it did cross some borders. So what about Honey Mink Forever?

Music today has been Thin Lizzy – Live and Dangerous (1978), ooh those duelling guitars, Scott Gorham and Brian Robertson’s pizzazz, the pounding drums of Brian Downey and Phil Lynott’s poetic lyrical Rock stardom. Never has anything so easy to criticise been so great.

Music Of The Daze