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Today I was so grateful for nature and the beauty of the world. From the park and its abundance of creatures to the wind driving the sea into the bay, every wave crowned with a white foam tuft racing to the beach. The sky was cloudless, a spotless blue dome over the bay, a multicoloured patchwork of seaweed greens and exotic blues. The waves slapped against the promenade wall below, seagulls hung effortlessly in the air, too mesmerized with their pleasure to make any noise at all. The wind was strong and cold and soon drove us back to the warmer alleyways that led up to the park. In the park a lively circus of birds, insects and mammals, alive in the spring. A man feeding the squirrels monkey nuts. One came and took one out of his hand and carefully de-shelled it to reach the nut inside. This brave squirrel with only half a tail kept returning for more and more nuts every couple of minutes, chasing off the competitors. The man threw nuts in the other squirrels’ direction up and down the pathway so they too could enjoy the feast. A lone pigeon stood behind him wondering when he’d get his chance. A female blackbird looked on from a branch, alert. All kinds of insects buzzed around the blossoming trees, striped in fur, yellow and black wonders, challenging aerodynamics, trailing their legs behind them as they burst into the air from inside a flower. Clouds of gnats appear dotted around the footpaths, no explanation for how they keep that floating circle continuously revolving in the air.

One wonders what the humans will do when they return, bringing Mumbai and Los Angeles back to its high levels of murderous pollution. Choking the trees, stunting the growth of all living things whilst poisoning the atmosphere. Blackening the lungs, irritating the throat and the eyes, blocking the pores of the skin, threatening the future of the Earth. Or, stepping back, seeing what can happen with some restraint, unfortunately in this case motivated by fear.

I wonder what Greta Thunberg’s next appearance might bring as she sees the results of the lockdown healing so quickly. Realizing what could be done to help the environment with some will and some effort from the major polluters.

I spoke to Nicklas in Stockholm today, he’s playing Mellotron on a Space Summit track and we were going over what we thought it needed. We were talking about the different approach that Sweden is having to the virus. It’s not as if life is the same, gigs are cancelled, people are working from home, the Swedes are being asked to take personal responsibility. Quite different from France where you need to fill in a form explaining where you’re going and why if you venture out. Olivia found out today that this year’s Night Of The Prog festival that she hosts has been cancelled, because Germany has cancelled all events till August 31st. Still, there’s some easing of lockdown restrictions in Germany as well as in Denmark. These next few weeks are going to reveal so much about where we are. For Olivia and I, after this, we still have to deal with the reality of Brexit. A married couple that live together, work together, perform together, have been together for nearly 4 years, but have no rights to live in each other’s country due to our status as self-employed travelling musicians. Society doesn’t know what to do with the stateless, the wanderers, those that choose a different path.

Guitars, guitars, guitars, today I played my Les Paul, my Fender Stratocaster, my Fender Jazzmaster and my Rickenbacker 340/6, layering up guitars on a Space Summit track. Using different guitars for different parts of the song that demand a different texture, blending guitars together to create new sounds. Switching amps, trying out the 15 watt Orange combo and trying out different VOX AC30s, comparing sounds and seeing which amp works best with which guitar on which part. Putting a capo on the electric guitar, tuning strings to different notes, trying different rhythms on the same part, combining the different rhythms for a unique effect. It’s great making records, but Dare and I work so hard to come up with the right sounds, the right formula for the songs, the right mic placement on the acoustic, the right effects pedal, there are so many variables, it’s trial and error until you just know when it’s right.

Music today began on YouTube when I was talking to Nicklas about last night’s choice of The Human Beast. He mentioned Elias Hulk, a five-piece from Bournemouth (where Robert Fripp was born). They made one album, Unchained (1970). A real mixture of stray notes and happening moments all mixed together in this one forgotten offering.

Then the vinyl came out, I played the debut album by Jonesy, released on Dawn Records in 1972. Better known than Elias Hulk, but still lingering on the forgotten page, off the radar of most listeners and completely on the radar of inquisitive Proggers. Mellotron features as well as intricacies that some of us love to hear in music, in-between The Clash and Blondie parties that we might also attend.

I always need some Robin Trower, ex Procol Harum, he’s a warm and wonderful bluesy, Hendrixy guitar player but with his own sound and feel. Incredibly his second album Bridge Of Sighs didn’t chart in the UK (neither did his first album, Twice Removed From Yesterday from 1973). Bridge Of Sighs reached No.7 in the USA. I saw him live in 1975, I guess it was the For Earth Below tour (that album did chart in the UK reaching No.26, No.5 in the USA). If this was pre Punk, what was keeping Robin Trower’s first two albums out of the charts in 1973 and 1974 – Glam (fair enough) and Middle Of The Road (literally).

I’m not sure if many people remember Ultimate Spinach? They are a little before my time, as they are a sixties Psychedelic Pop group that released three albums, their first in 1968. They were Boston’s equivalent to the sound of San Francisco (the Bosstown sound) along with contemporaries Orpheus and Beacon Street Union. Lots of cool instrumentals and jumpy Beat group rhythms with vocals and clavinets. Spooky spoken vocal introductions, you haven’t lived till you’ve heard (Ballad Of) The Hip Death Goddess.

Does anybody out there remember the band The United States Of America? Their debut album (1968) is a Psychedelic avant-garde trip around the brain of Joseph Byrd and Dorothy Moskowitz and band, using electronic sounds in a Rock format. An absolute essential to anyone’s record collection, just ask Portishead.

As we started off talking about a choppy sea today and we are on the notorious Cornwall coast, it seemed appropriate to make Wreck from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000) Song Of The Day:

 

Wreck (A Sea Shanty)

There’s a twisted piece of jagged metal
A broken shoe and a rusting kettle
A bed of sand in which to lie
A clear blue sea in which to die
And as the breath slips from your lung
There’s no more words on your swollen tongue
And fishes pick your melting flesh
Living on your recent death

Dawn has promised you your dreams
And mentioned not your unheard screams
Set your course in your sky blue boat
You couldn’t guess you wouldn’t float
Who could sink such pretty craft
You jeered and rolled and shrugged and laughed
How vicious can a colored reef
Bear its sharp and yellow teeth

Too beautiful a day to die
Too memorable to be forgotten
A sea of tears to wave goodbye
A silent wreck to haunt the bottom

The ripples whimper on the surface
Jellyfish, transparent purses
Their sting the strength of hoarded gold
The gifts they’d buy remain unsold
So what’s the worth of the dead’s desires
When waterlogged are life’s cold fires
With seaweed hair and barnacle bones
In the powerless court on a seashell throne

Back on land your loved ones wait
For news that saunters in too late
Their salty tears mix with the sea
As they wait for all eternity
And later all that is recovered
A defiant ring that graced your lover
But to the sea now he is wed
In a ceremony of the dead

Too beautiful a day to die
Too memorable to be forgotten
A sea of tears to wave goodbye
A silent wreck to haunt the bottom

(Willson-Piper)
Hanging Out In Heaven (2000)

Perhaps this sounds like the beginning of a children’s story, but the other day we saved the life of a bumblebee. We were walking up a pathway from the promenade to the park and Olivia heard a high pitched buzzing. On investigation in the wall, covered in undergrowth, a bumblebee was trapped in the silk of a small spider’s web. After much digging and scraping with a small stick we managed to free the creature and it triumphantly flew away. The very small spider looked rather upset and suggested that in the animal kingdom this is how it goes, “We trap each other” it told me, “And then we eat each other and that’s how we survive. Now you’ve helped the bumblebee escape and I might not come across a meal like that ever again, my spider children might starve”. I remembered the footage on television from nature shows where they showed lions bringing down gazelles and thinking as a child “Why don’t they go and rescue the gazelle?”. But, in this case it was because it was a bumblebee and from what I understand, the bees are in trouble at the moment and the more trouble they get in, the more trouble the world gets in, because they pollinate our crops, so I feel no guilt stealing dinner from the spider and setting the bumblebee free.

As week four of the lockdown begins I can’t imagine how it is for people confined to their flats, worried and wondering when it will end. At least here we have the sea, we can go down to the promenade and breathe in the salty air and be invigorated by the mass of water that stretches from the shore to the horizon in multiple shades of blue and green. Our friend Jack told us that over the hot Easter weekend the police were removing people from the beach. All this as we watch what happens in Sweden and especially in the capital city Stockholm where my daughter, her partner and my granddaughter live. There’s no closing of schools and shops, bars or restaurants, gatherings of up to 50 people are allowed. Only time will tell if they are making the right decision. The economy versus the ravaging of the vulnerable. I actually try not to read too much about the details anymore, I might skirt over some scary headlines, but there’s so many stories and differences of opinion about it all and the confusion only causes more anxiety. Death and conspiracy theories aren’t really the way I like to start my day. Fill your day with positive things instead and use the internet to discover wonderful things, not fueling negativity and despair. Research and listen to inspiring music, learn about interesting things, read the books you never have time for, watch interesting films, learn some French. You won’t have a chance like this again.

I know it’s going to drive you mad talking about this again, but today we were in the studio with the Space Summit project. Today I was reminding myself of the chords and parts for a song that were a little hard to remember until we realized that it was capo on the third fret. (CAPO – a clamp fastened across all the strings of a fretted musical instrument to raise their tuning by a chosen amount.) This forgetfulness happens when you write something and then move on. Even if you record it, you listen back sometime later and forget how you did it, despite it being you that wrote it. This is the case for my song More Is Less from Nightjar. I know I tuned the guitar weirdly, but I can’t quite figure out the shapes and what string was what. So, here’s some good advice for all budding singer-songwriters or composers, video yourself when you’ve consolidated the part so you don’t lose it in the long grass.

The studio was intense today, it often is, because it has to be right. Of course different people have a different idea of right. Some want pristine perfection, some want a collapsing sincerity and what’s right is subjective. It’s why Donald Fagen didn’t form Generation X. (On a tangent I was always mildly amused in the archive that alphabetically Generation X were followed by Genesis, Bon Iver by Bon Jovi.) We worked on two different songs today, on one I played tambourine and on the other guitar and bass (listen here). Percussion is a tricky skill, if you shake a tambourine over a backing track you’d better be in time. (I was happy to hear that the tambourine I used today, Dare bought in Bombay.) If you think too hard about it you lose the feel, if you are too casual about it you drift out of time, so the only way is to have a disciplined nonchalance, works every time. The songs I played guitar on had lots of holes in the rhythm, so it had to be dead on with the drums. It was acoustic 12 string and it took a lot of concentration. Then I had to write and play the bass part and that took some thinking and some counting and some use of that little finger. It’s the little finger that needs to be used in case of days like today. So more advice, use your little finger as much as you can so that when you have to use it, you have the strength and can control it. We will continue tomorrow with electric guitars as we build the song into its potential.

Music today has been slightly odd, I went to a real obscurity first. The Human Beast were a three-piece from Edinburgh, they only made one album called Volume 1 (1970) which sadly suggests they might have been planning a Volume 2 that never came to pass. There’s a cover version of Maybe Someday written by Mike Heron from the Incredible String Band (it was the opening track on their debut album released in 1966). The Human Beast are a Heavy Psych power trio and well worth investigation if you like this kind of thing.

Next came the Psychedelic Sixties Blossom Toes, a period piece, a little wacky at times but often transporting you to the era in a blissful nostalgia. Jim Cregan was in this band, you might remember him for playing the guitar solo on Come Up And See Me (Make Me Smile) for Steve Harley and Cockney Rebel. He was also in Rod Stewart’s band for 20 years. He also played with Stud (1971), that included the other two members of Rory Gallagher’s Taste, John Wilson and Charlie McCraken. The band also featured John Weider who was with Family for a spell. In Stud he played bass, guitar, banjo, violin and cello. This led me to Family’s A Song For Me (1970) where Weider was also doing his musical instrumentalist thing.

So many records, so little time. One might say so only play the amazing ones, but what’s amazing is how other people see music, whether it be Generation X and Genesis or Bon Iver and Bon Jovi. My version of music is spread across a lot of records, but today it’s The Saddest House In Stockholm from Spirit Level, recorded live in the studio in Stockholm in one take. The song was written about a house I used to see every time I took the ‘pendeltåg’ (pendulum train) to the dentist. This is the train that goes back and forth from the city to the suburbs, hence the name. The house stood in the middle of the railway tracks, completely surrounded, I couldn’t ever see how you could enter the house. It was as if the owners wouldn’t sell and made the train company lay their tracks around it, but they left them no entry or exit. I took the ‘pendeltåg’ often because I was always at the dentist. I remember when she first looked in my mouth and said “Oh my god, who has done this to you?”. She said she’d never seen such amateurish dental work…but that’s another story.

 

The Saddest House In Stockholm

The saddest house in Stockholm
Remembers former glories
Of views without the railway tracks
And flats with many storeys

Its towers were a splendour
But now I just feel pity
To see the broken windows
And walls full of graffiti

I long to sit alone inside
And recreate the past
Imagining an antique clock
That ran a little fast

And suddenly, it’s all bare boards
And giant walls and ceiling
Witnessing this empty shell
That once was full of feeling

The rain beats on the rooftop
But the heart already stopped
The fading yellow Stockholm paint
Around the bend bulldozers wait
Their gnashing blades of blood and hate
They’re anxious just to satiate
Condemning her to her cruel fate
Her beauty seemed to act as bait
Her ugliness to take his shape
A shadow cast from his dark cape
That dwarfs her curves and crashes her gate
Her doors will split, and her stairs innate
And dust and rubble in the grate
She’s so young, but it’s too late

The saddest house in Stockholm
Settles on her rock
Remembers her friend
His fingers and hands
The ticking, though, has stopped

(Willson-Piper)
Spirit Level (1992)

Have you heard Bob Dylan’s new ‘single’ yet? It’s called Murder Most Foul. It revolves around the assassination of President Kennedy and it’s 17 minutes long. But is it really a single, are there singles anymore? It’s just a song, a new song, the first he’s released since 2012, eight years. Why? Has he had enough of writing songs? This isn’t a complaint, I’m just wondering what happens? Of course a Dylan album every two years with amazing songs and fantastic lyrics would be nice – interestingly between 2012 and his death in 2016, Leonard Cohen did actually release an album every 2 years. Neil Young has released nine albums since 2012, one was recorded in 1976, but I suppose it’s a different attitude to the art. They talk about Dylan’s never-ending tour, maybe that’s it, he’s just always on the road (not now though). All the articles I’ve seen about the new song are focussed on how radio will deal with it. They can’t not play it, but it also doesn’t fit into the format. So, they will play it, but isn’t it the tail wagging the dog that bands have to fit into the formula of radio instead of the radio being the vehicle for the music, whatever it is, however long or short it is, however weird or catchy it is. Of course this is just a fantasy. Radio is about money, advertising dollars, keeping up a listenership and worst of all catering for people who don’t buy music. Don’t worry I don’t deny the general public the pleasures of their daytime radio, it’s just not a medium for everyone, especially if you are not into the mainstream. The common denominator, competition and all that, you can’t expect to hear Trout Mask Replica in-between the morning traffic bulletins, then again how great would that be!

There was this group called Queen, they had a silly opera-like song that was way too long called Bohemian Rhapsody and yet…Music by John Miles, super long, big hit. What about Don McLean’s American Pie. I remember on the 7 inch single it just faded out on Side 1 and faded in again on Side 2. Guns N’ Roses’ November Rain was nearly 9 minutes long. Al Stewart’s Year Of The Cat is 6.41. There’s very long songs that have made it to the bottom of the charts, but all these were big hits. Some songs that were mega hits just never needed editing like Hotel California at 6.31. I wonder who it was sitting around the table at the marketing meeting saying, ‘Do we really need that long, long guitar solo at the end?’. I’m sure it came up. Ha ha. Then there’s the songs that were edited to be singles. There’s some really mad ones like Kraftwerk’s Autobahn, the single is 4.36, the album version is 22.47. Manfred Mann’s Earth Band’s Blinded By The Light is 7.08 on the album, edited to 3.49 for the single. Some bright spark thought that Iron Butterfly’s In A Gadda Da Vida could be a hit, the album version is 17.04, somehow they edited it for a single version and got it down to 2.54, and against all odds it reached No.30 in the US charts in 1968, no mean feat with the competition around at that time.

Perhaps this has come up because Dare and I were in the studio today working on what could possibly be the Space Summit single. I’m sorry I cannot divulge the title just yet, but if all goes to plan and Nicklas’ Mellotron works out we could have a catchy spacey hit…except it’s 2020 and not 1969. I was listening to a very catchy, young Pop record tonight by a band called Pale Waves and thinking how we just can’t compete, we don’t even want to. We hear it all differently inside our older heads, we can’t do it like them. We can only be successful on our own terms, it’s hard to attract new and younger people. When The Stones put out Black And Blue in 1975 the single was Fool To Cry, I thought that was great when it came out, but it was hardly typical and the reverse happened, the old fans hated it whilst younger people like me liked it (I was 17). The problem lies in the interest or lack of it that a lot of people have when they get older (not anyone that’s reading this of course) and apart from some icons, younger people are generally just not interested in older stuff. And then there’s the Hip Hop phenomenon. I thought Billie Eilish’s album was great and I also noticed that when I was standing at the back of a gig watching Robin Trower everyone had grey hair. The biggest cross section I ever saw at a gig was Nick Cave in Stockholm, young, old, men, women, every type. It’s an amazing trick that he’s pulled off. Sadly most older bands are faced with the nostalgia circuit, never able to recapture a sizeable following for new material, slaves to their glorious history. U2 seem to be an exception, perhaps Morrissey, the audience seems interested in their new material. Why is that? They seem to have convinced the world that their new stuff will be as good as their old stuff and generally it isn’t, is it? But like Morrissey it seems to be more about what they are trying to say, what they are commenting on rather than the songs themselves as if their perception of things resonates with their rather large audience. Hm, these are just random thoughts that are entering into my head as I’m writing.

I went to another place to listen to music tonight, at least to start with. I listened to two albums by Carla Bley and her band, Live At The Great American Music Hall in San Francisco (where I’ve played 2 or 3 times) and then a studio album called Social Studies. It’s probably Jazz and she is actually more than anything else a composer rather than a musician, she plays but it’s about the composition first. Interesting to be a person who mainly composes and only plays as a tool.

After that came a record that Boydy got for me at a rare show by the seventies Folk Rock band Fuchsia (named after the character in Mervyn Peake’s Gormenghast trilogy). Coloured vinyl, see-through plastic sleeve, limited to two hundred and a surprisingly ‘on it’ record for a band that waited decades to make their second album. (Thanks Boydy.)

Then I completely went somewhere else and listened to Concrete Blonde’s 1990 album Bloodletting. Their most successful record, with Joey, No.2 in Australia, also Top 20 in the US. But it’s the other songs I like, Caroline, Tomorrow Wendy. I don’t know whether it was because of Jim Mankey’s unusual virtuoso guitar playing in such an indie type band, but I followed it with Moroccan Roll (1977) by Jazz Rock crazy giants Brand X, phew! Phil Collins on drums in his pre-Pop exploratory phase.

At this point I wanted to hear a slow guitarist so I played Free At Last (1972). This album has the hit Little Bit Of Love on it. Warm, bluesy influenced Pop by very young men. At this point Paul Rodgers and Simon Kirke were 23, Paul Kossof was 22 and Andy Fraser was just 20 and this was their fifth album!

Then I found Nilsson Schmilsson (1971), his seventh album and featuring the No.1 hit Without You, written By Pete Ham and Tom Evans from Badfinger. It stars Klaus Voormann on bass and Jim Keltner on drums. What a song and what a singer Nilsson is. Perhaps after his endorsement and friendship with The Beatles, this was Nilsson’s attitude to playing live: “When did you play last?” – “I didn’t.” – “Where have you played before?” – “I haven’t.” – “When will you be playing next?” – “I don’t.”

Song Of The Day is Cry from Honey Mink Forever, because Chuck Mauk likes it a lot and it’s the closest we ever got to writing a song like Without You, although until this moment I never even considered the thought.

 

Cry

I can wander
Through this lonely place
Like other people do
But I can’t find you
Empty rows
Of memories long gone
That you retain
It’s this that gets you through

No need for lipstick
No need for perfume
No social engagements
For you to resume
No one to see you
Now he has left you
No one remembers you
You were two when they met you

But the days keep on
Making me cry
And the nights go by
I would surely die
I look at my face
And see the lines
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will I see you
When will I see you again

Here in the silence
Of the frantic busy streets
Nothing left to say
You’re on your own again
You take out your door key
That opens up a place
Where you’ll be alone
Always there but never home

No burst of laughter
No stumbling off kerbs
No searching special shops
For exotic herbs
No candles burning down
From moonlit dinners
No idle chatter left
The loser’s lost her winner

But the days keep on
Making me cry
And the nights go by
I would surely die
I look at my face
And see the lines
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will I see you
When will I see you again

And you sit on the stairs
And I start to cry
And the years go by
I’ll surely die
And I fall onto my bed
And I can’t get by
Gonna lose my mind
The speed of time
Will take me to you
Will take me to you again

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

Now and again I knock the piece of furniture that the turntable sits on, sometimes, the needle goes across the record, other times the lid drops too hard and the needle jumps like a drunken flea across the grooves. Sometimes I even drop the record. Once in the mid seventies, I went over to Liverpool to buy a new album. I took the F19 bus from Thingwall where I lived on The Wirral to Woodside in Birkenhead where the Liverpool ferry went from. To go by ‘Ferry ‘Cross The Mersey’ was a very regular occurrence for us and the famous song by Gerry & The Pacemakers never came up. (I don’t think pacemakers, as in for the heart, had been invented yet.) It was where we lived, The Beatles and all that, we took it all for granted. I remember the ferries were called The Woodchurch and The Overchurch (Woodchurch Sec was where I went to school). There was one called The Mountwood, too, which I don’t actually remember or do I, vaguely?

I walked from the Pier Head to Mathew Street where Aunty Twacky’s Bazaar was, Probe Records was just around the corner and there I bought Gong’s Camembert Electrique. It had originally been released on Byg Records in France in 1971, but with Virgin’s new found fame as Mike Oldfield’s record label they started signing odd bands and releasing underground records. This was a real deal, it was 59 pence. Back to the ferry, I got off at Woodside to find the F19 and dropped the record. It slid clean out of its sleeve onto the road and smashed. I remember that moment of horror well, but I also remember thinking well it was only 59 pence, so I turned around, got back on the ferry and went back via Mathew Street to Probe and bought another copy.

Funnily enough when I was in Liverpool in November working on The Wild Swans record, Gong were in town supporting and playing with Steve Hillage as his band, so we went to see them. Olivia and I have got to know them a bit through her hosting the Night Of The Prog festival in Germany so they put us on the guest list, and they were great. Leader Daevid Allen died in 2015, but he encouraged them to carry on before he passed away and now led by Kavus Torabi they have become another version of what was always an evolving concept.

My point with all this is that although I did actually destroy a record in the street I can’t believe the condition of a lot of secondhand records and I simply cannot imagine what people did to them to cause such destruction. I do have a record cleaning machine so that helps a lot by sucking dirt out of the grooves, but there’s not much you can do about a massive scratch.

Oh to have a time machine and go back and buy all those rare records brand new.

With CDs you may remember the infamous story from the new technology program Tomorrow’s World, that used to be on the tele, where they told us that CDs were indestructible. I especially love the moment when he rubs the stone on the disc. Watch it here for a real good laugh:

 
Or see the children’s TV show version with the honey and coffee version of indestructible:

 
After a couple of days off from the studio today Dare and I went in to do something different. I’d done some shows in America with Chuck Mauk playing drums and the other day he asked me if I could play a solo on a song from his daughter Gracie’s project. She sings and writes and plays the keys. So that’s how we started the day. It’s so amazing these days that you can do things like this. It shows that remote mixing and recording can really work. Later today Dare got on with preparing the next Space Summit track for me to play guitar and bass on tomorrow.

We did get a walk down to the sea today on this Easter Sunday, just to look at it. That’s all you need, five or ten minutes of contemplating the waves, looking out into the bay, seeing the line of the horizon, seeing what mood she’s in. We ran into our friend Jack. He used to live very close to the studio and used to come here as a little boy and hang out. He has fantastic curly hair and thankfully he hasn’t cut it as he’s got older. He’s 19 now, training to be a paramedic and working as a lifeguard on the summer beaches and also up at the leisure centre. He’s on call at the moment and was driving by when he saw a body lying on the stones. He stopped and came over to see what was wrong only to discover it was me messing around! Ha ha. I’d just seen a six year old doing exactly the same thing, lying on the stones playing with the ones near his head completely in his own world. He was so intoxicated by those stones that I had to try it, Jack came over to save me, he’s such a good lad. His dad Julian features in the lyric to In A Field Full Of Sheep.

After I finished writing last night I played another couple of albums. The first Dire Straits album (1978) and the second, Communiqué (1979). I always particularly liked these two records. I lived in London when they came out and I bought the first album before they were big and then of course, they exploded. It was the arrival of a unique guitar player, a very difficult thing to be. Mark Knopfler went on to be in the biggest band in the world for a while there. He went from nowhere to working with Bob Dylan. We supported them on their Australian tour in the early eighties. I think we did about 13 shows with them. I remember during one of the multiple shows in Sydney I fell through a hole in the stage. It was covered in gaffa tape, but I didn’t get the memo. I didn’t fall all the way through, just one leg, but I was playing and it was embarrassing and probably painful, could have been serious. We only met Knopfler once, first gig he put his head around our dressing room door, “Got enough drinks lads?”. The drink container was empty. Also on the subject of Dire Straits, it seems Brothers In Arms was one of the first CDs.

So after studio and after seshs tonight with the prolific Joanne in Portland and the evolving Doug in Wappinger Falls I played Gong’s memorable mad Camembert Electrique followed by the post Daevid Allen album, wonderfully titled Rejoice! I’m Dead!.

So keeping it eccentric, today’s Song Of The Day is In A Field Full Of Sheep from Noctorum’s The Afterlife, it seems appropriate in lots of different ways:

 

In A Field Full Of Sheep

Olivia sewed up her skirt again
By the time the morning came it had broken
And I dragged the sleep out of my eyes
And realized that I had awoken

Martin lost his cane last night
He wrote a poem on the kitchen table
And Dare let his coffee go cold
And he said that he just wasn’t able

I don’t know why why why I die so badly
I don’t know why I try so hard

I fell off the chair
Onto the floor
I trapped my fingers
Under the door

Hudley slept in his football kit
And dreamt he was top of the table
And Boydie woke up to the roar of the crowd
And realized it’s all just a fable

Julian parked his van outside
He loaded a grand piano
Duncan blew his flute like a gale force wind
Till he suddenly ran out of ammo

I don’t know why why why time moves so slowly
When I try try try so hard

I fell out of bed
Onto my back
Sometimes I feel
I’ve gone off the track

[Find a way, yeah]
[Find a way, yeah]

And I know why why why I love you all so madly
I don’t have to try try try so hard

I broke my pen
I ran out of ink
Wrote half a list
And started to think

Slumped in a chair
I fell asleep
Awoke with a start
In a field full of sheep

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – The Afterlife (2019)

Creativity, what is it? It has many forms, but I have always been interested in the aspect of creating something where nothing was. A lyric, a tune, a concept, a story. Characters that live and breathe, a melody that wasn’t there before. I remember reading somewhere that one of Paul McCartney’s special moments was hearing the milkman whistling Yesterday, a melody that came to him in a dream, something real from some unknown place. If you think about how much information you take in in a day, how you process it and what you do with it, there are choices. You can form an opinion, stimulate yourself, learn how to avoid trouble, find a new job, discover a new band, figure out how your mobile phone works or simply become aware, have an epiphany, change your life. Whatever it is that you get from your day you can use it to live and you can use it to create. All things that come into your consciousness are potential ideas for stories, songs, lyrics, paintings, poems and other creative mediums that need a narrative context. So, what do you need to unlock them from inside of you? First of all, you need your imagination. You need the will. You need to not give up if it doesn’t come to you quickly, so you need discipline and you need faith in the magic that makes it all happen. You are also allowed to fail. I once read a very important lesson on the back of a sugar packet – “You’re far better trying and failing than not trying and succeeding”. Wisdom comes in the oddest of places.

The other lesson here is that you don’t need many skills to create something great. You just need your unique voice. Only you can do things the way that you do them. You also need to finish what you started, create a body of work, worry about its worth later and then improve upon it if you must. It’s so easy to waste time, use your time instead. Now is the time to realize that with so many people stuck at home wondering what to do, Netflix isn’t the answer, at least not 24/7. After you’ve fixed the garden fence, caught up on sleep and replaced the garage lightbulb then pick up an instrument (that also means a pen). The world is so amazing, there’s so much to observe and contemplate, so much to discover, so much to say, so say it. There’s love and there’s loss, there’s beauty and there’s turmoil and there’s absolute fantasy, tap into the thing that suits you best and write. Write about your beautiful cat or your budgie or your partner’s smile or the rain or how the right wing makes you mad. Write nonsense, write without thinking or think hard and write something deeply personal, then erase it, or don’t. Make it rhyme, or don’t. Everything is relevant. There’s only one trick and that is that you just have to get started. There’s no genius secret, put in some effort, find the will, nurture your talent, use your imagination, try some experimentation and you’re off, see you in artistic heaven. Your biggest hurdle is your good self and time. You need a little confidence and some time management, mix it with desire and then the images will appear in front of you, you just have to capture them before they fly away and fly away they will, you just need to coax them in your direction.

I went up to Dare’s today, we had a studio day off, he was pulling the brambles out of the wall opposite his house in the hot summer sun. Nothing like a bit of domestic life to re-inspire you for the studio. I don’t really take any time off from music, it’s either studio, sessions, tours or listening to records. I’m trying to figure out how to read and watch classic films, too. There must be a way. It’s hard to get away from your stereo when it sounds so good. Perhaps people would sit and listen to records all the way through and get excited and inspired by them if they had a decent stereo system. I realize that the computer station has become the centre of the universe, but even if you don’t want physical records or CDs in your front room at least invest in an amp and speakers, because your computer is so easy to plug into a system like that and everything will sound better. Surely you want better sound if you are into music or film. Investigate this, you deserve it.

Today I have been listening to a wide selection of music. Right now I’m listening to LoveLaws (2018) by TT. It’s the solo album by Theresa Wayman from LA band Warpaint. I’m a bit of a fan of hers/them (the song Love Is To Die is what caught me). I’ll be playing their 2014 self-titled album next. As well as Wayman, there’s Jenny Lee Lindberg on bass and vocals and Emily Kokal on vocals and guitar as well as Australian Stella Mozgawa on drums (I love her feel).

I also went all Post Punk and listened to Playing With A Different Sex (1981) by Au Pairs, it’s been a while since I heard that. It takes you straight back to the energy of the era. Then there was Sulk (1982) by The Associates, what a record, what a singer. Tragically Billy Mackenzie committed suicide at the age of 39.

I started off with a hangover (not the kind you think) from the early hours by playing the only Pure Food And Drug Act album from 1972. Just one album recorded live in Seattle, they were essentially violinist Don ‘Sugarcane’ Harris’ group from what I understand, but apparently he was quite unreliable and they didn’t last. The reason I played this album was because of guitar player Harvey Mandel (Canned Heat and John Mayall bass player, Larry Taylor was also originally in the band before they made the album). Mandel contributes some great moments and after this I played his great debut solo album Cristo Redentor (1968) – file under essential! (By the way, he played on The Stones’ Black And Blue.)

Somewhere between all this and perusing the letter ‘A’ as I try to sort my collection out I chanced on Harvey Andrews. A singer-songwriter that not many seem to remember. But I was thoroughly enjoying his first solo album Places And Faces from 1970 tonight. Then I followed it with his second album Writer Of Songs. These records have some luminaries on them, too: Rick Wakeman, Cozy Powell, Dave Pegg, Ralph McTell. If you are in the mood for a late sixties, early seventies singer-songwriter then check him out.

Song Of The Day is Too Round To Be Square from Art Attack (1988). I had two seshes today, one with Marc in Annapolis and one with Paul in New Orleans and we started talking about round pyramids, hm? Oh yeah and seventeen minute Bob Dylan single, isn’t life exciting?

PS: There’s a clip on the Space Summit Facebook page from the studio sessions and there may be more so if you like that kind of thing like & follow the page.

 

Too Round To Be Square

The desperate angel sits in the dark
Wings in a fold, arrow through her heart
The tepid stream runs for a medal
Silver beats gold and gives her a start

Too fine to be smooth
Too greedy to share
Too blue to be colour
Too round to be square

The perspex heath melts in the sun
The liquid slips to a room at the front
The merry house has a girl’s name
A plastic fox, drunk at the hunt

Too fine to be smooth
Too greedy to share
Too blue to be colour
Too round to be square

Too fine to be smooth
Too greedy to share
Too blue to be colour
Too round to be square

[Spoken]
Too fine to be smooth
Too greedy to share
Too blue to be colour
Too round to be square

(Willson-Piper)
Art Attack (1988)