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It was proper hot today and May was apparently the sunniest month on record. The pain still rages in the US and Trump is doing his best to make it worse. The pandemic is still here although a lot of people who haven’t died are edging their bets. Big crowds on the beaches, big crowds on the streets and Dumb-y-Nick’s irresponsible behaviour has just seen people throwing caution to the wind. But the beach was lovely today, two older ladies in the water, but why is it that these ladies never get their hair wet? Is it something to do with their hairdo? It’s the same when I’m swimming at the leisure centre, the older ladies never seem to want to duck their heads below the water. For me it’s one of the greatest pleasures of swimming.

Today was a day of stopping off for chats. We saw Georgie, Dare’s house mate, sitting on a bench, we went past Vicky and Joe’s house (mastering folks) and then Oufie and Steve who live kinda next door to the studio. Steve is the in-house engineer at the Acorn Theatre opposite the studio, Oufie used to run it and many things in Penzance. There’s a lot to discuss these days, so much in fact that everything is falling on top of everything else and we are left with one great “Ball Of Confusion”, “That’s what the world is today. Hey, hey”.

Stories that are newer shouldn’t wipe out old stories. If you used that theory in everyday life you’d never get to finish anything. Syria is still a relevant and terrible story as is Afghanistan, Palestine and Israel, Saudi Arabia and Yemen, as is Burma, as is grooming gangs in the north. What happens to these stories? Are they not allowed to have an end, a solution? Outrage fades so quickly when fresh outrage arrives. No one seems to be able to cope with a world full of one injustice on top of another, especially as they are all now being recorded, but then it seems ultimately discarded to the trash heap of another lost tragedy. Can you imagine what the racist pigs got away with in the past? It’s just horrifying.

Looking for happy signs in the sunlight today, standing on the beach, gazing out at the beautiful sea and the fresh aroma of seaweed and salt. Holding hands with my lovely wife and dreaming of the day that the belt shop opens so I can finally discard the dressing gown chord that holds up my shorts. We have to find some levity in these trying days. It’s a time to love your friends as you get them back. A time to reflect on everything you took for granted, like I did with my belt. I feel so lucky being stuck in a recording studio, near the sea. It could have been so much worse. I heard that in the US there’s over 40,000,000 registered for unemployment. When I think of my cancelled US dates, how I should be in Canada right now and the British dates we were looking forward to in December, I can only be grateful that I have something else to do, recording, teaching, writing. Most people’s lives are so changed, they must be wondering what hit them, how do you replace what’s gone and how is it possible that all this has even happened? And the waiting, the not knowing.

I long to travel, to see different countries, cities I’ve never been to, cities I know and where friends live, but I wonder how much things will change in the future. Will everything just go back to normal or has everything actually changed already? One thing that seems to be inevitable is the amount of people working from home, showing that you don’t have to force people into the office to get good work. Saving the time the commute takes, saving the cost of the commute, saving the uncomfortableness of the commute, saving expensive office space. The only reason that this hasn’t happened before is because the companies don’t trust their workers, citing distractions, kids, pets, guitars. In actual fact, research has shown that people who work from home are more productive, work longer than they need to and take fewer sick days. Everything is trust, isn’t it?

Music today comes from Simone’s Guest List and starts with a concept album called The Butterfly Ball (1974), based on a children’s poem with a cast of thousands including Glenn Hughes, David Coverdale, Ronnie James Dio and Jimmy Helms as lead vocalists, and a core band of Eddie Hardin, Mo Foster, Ray Fenwick, Les Binks, Mike Moran and of course Roger Glover whose name features and who had recently left Deep Purple. It’s a long list of collaborators which originally was a Jon Lord project taken over by Roger Glover when Lord got busy with the band he had just left. The brilliant Love Is All and Sitting On A Dream are sung by Ronnie James Dio and are album high points. Love Is All was a number one single in The Netherlands and Belgium.

The album is based on a poem by William Roscoe (1753 – 1831) and adapted by South African born author William Plomer and illustrator Alan Aldridge with another illustrator, Harry Willock. The artwork was part of the whole concept and the idea was for it to be an animated film, but it was never made. Aldridge has become very well-known for his illustration of anthropomorphic creatures, but he collaborated with another brilliant talent called Harry Willock. Willock was responsible for the Small Faces’ Ogdens’ Nut Gone Flake album cover (1968) and it seems hard to know exactly how much of Aldridge’s work was actually in collaboration with Willock. Famous works were album covers for The Who – A Quick One (1966), Elton John’s Captain Fantastic And The Brown Dirt Cowboy (1975), Gordon Giltrap’s The Peacock Party (1979), the sequel to The Butterfly Ball and The Lion’s Cavalcade book, which was part three. Then there’s The Illustrated Beatles lyrics and the logo for the Hard Rock cafe. Sadly Aldridge died in 2017 but for me his legacy is somewhat tarnished as he took a lot of credit for work that was actually done by Willock or at least shared. It doesn’t mean that Aldridge wasn’t an amazing illustrator and ideas man in his own right, but if he’d just shared more of the glory with Willock then we’d really be able to see his individual talent more clearly. You can read about Harry Willock and his collaboration with the more famous Alan Aldridge here and here.

Rod Stewart’s Every Picture Tells A Story (1971) was a number one album in the US and the UK. Simultaneously Maggie May hit the No.1 spot in both countries. It is in essence a catchy folky Blues album with a whole lot of memorable songs. Tim Hardin’s classic Reason To Believe, Bob Dylan’s Tomorrow Is A Long Time, Bluesman Arthur Crudup’s That’s All Right (into Amazing Grace, believe it or not) and The Temptation’s (I Know) I’m Losing You. Although this is a select collection of songs from other writers, the mega hit Maggie May was written by Stewart and Martin Quittenton who had been the guitarist in Steamhammer (who I really like by the way). Mandolin Wind was written by Stewart alone, showing off his writing skills. A great Rock ‘n’ Roll album that endures due to Stewart’s voice at its best and song choice plus Lane, Wood, Jones and McLagan are playing on it as Stewart was also a member of The Faces at the time. Journeyman bassist Andy Pyle, Pete Sears, Micky Waller on drums, Long John Baldry and Danny Thompson are all there, too. Hilarious musician credit moment, Ray Jackson was credited as “The mandolin was played by the mandolin player in Lindisfarne. The name slips my mind”. Why didn’t he just look it up on the net?

Simone chose The Unforgettable Fire (1984) by U2, which happens to be my favourite U2 album. It wears really well, the eighties sounds can be the worst especially from the viewpoint of 2020. What’s that phrase, “hindsight is 2020”. Have a listen to a Thompson Twins album from the eighties, phew. It’s just that U2 are a four piece Rock band – guitar, bass, drums and vocals, you’ve got to be really trying hard to make it sound bad.

The album is produced by Eno and Daniel Lanois and at this point it seemed an unlikely pairing, but I guess they were all looking for a different direction. Eno/Lanois managed to help them achieve that whilst keeping their sound, keeping their four piece Rock band thing and yet somehow it’s gone moody. The Edge is perfecting his rhythm style on this album, continuing to never play lead guitar (it’s a skill in itself). Bono sounds sweet and sincere, tough and passionate. I guess it’s around now that people started to dislike him voicing an opinion about the state of the world. It never bothered me, I always thought he meant it. My favourite track is the title track, the way it goes into that chorus, the melody, love it. The falsetto the second time around, the groove which is probably an eighties thing that you might hear The Bunnymen doing or Simple Minds. The cover art, overseen and photographed by Anton Corbijn, is atmosphere deluxe. All ‘round great piece of work, what happened?

Last but not least is the amazing All Things Must Pass (1970) by George Harrison. A triple album and arguably the best Beatles solo album. It is the album with My Sweet Lord and the controversy of the writing credit and the fact that the court ruled against him and said that he was “subconsciously plagiarizing” The Chiffons’ He’s So Fine written by Ronnie Mack, was unfortunate. But it wasn’t Ronnie Mack that was suing, it was the publishing company Bright Tunes, Mack had died in 1963. Harrison had to pay 1,6 million dollars to Bright Tunes. I think there’s a deeper story here, I heard once that he just bought the company that was suing him, is that true?

None of this matters, the album is great, packed full of wonderful songs. From the opener I’d Have You Anytime, written with Bob Dylan and with the lyrical guitar of Eric Clapton, My Sweet Lord is next, then Wah Wah, Isn’t It A Pity – that’s side one, so good. Then side two, What Is Life, the second single and another hit. Dylan’s If Not For You is next, I always remember Olivia Newton-John singing it in the seventies based on the George version:

 
Behind That Locked Door is George’s country song, followed by Let It Down, so many great melodies and sounds. Run Of The Mill ends side two and the amazing Beware Of Darkness starts side three. You can so hear his Liverpool accent on this one. The next track, Apple Scruffs, is about particular die-hard fans who earned a title and a song. I actually know one of them, ha ha, Sue, she lives down here in Cornwall, one of the originals. Hi Sue!

Ballad Of Sir Frankie Crisp was dedicated to the original owner of the house where Harrison lived, featured on the album cover and who Harrison apparently talked about like he was alive. On Awaiting On You All you can hear the sound of Phil Spector clearly in the production. Side four ends with the title track, the song was rejected by The Beatles. Side four opens with I Dig Love, a light moment when you compare it to the more spiritual and soul-searching songs on the record and in contrast to the next track, Art Of Dying. Isn’t It A Pity returns as version 2. It’s worth hearing again in another version, but who would do that these days? It’s another one rejected by The Beatles as is the closing track, Hear Me Lord.

The rest of the album, sides five and six, are what have been called “informal jams”. Everyone should do this, add jams to their record. After listening to the live sections of the Man album last night, I know it’s the right thing to do, if you have a band release the songs and the jams. These tracks, recorded during the recording of the album proper, include Eric Clapton, Carl Radle, Klaus Voormann, Dave Mason, Bobby Whitlock, Bobby Keyes, Jim Gordon, Gary Wright, Jim Price and Al Aronowitz.

All Things Must Pass has contributions from the aforementioned players as well as Ringo, the Badfinger boys, Alan White, Gary Brooker, Pete Drake and Mal Evans. It’s produced by Phil Spector and one of the engineers, Ken Scott, went on to produce Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane for Bowie, Crime Of The Century and Crisis? What Crisis? for Supertramp and oh, the list is soooo long.

Simone actually sent me a list with one album every year from 1970 – 1988. Thank you, Simone.

Song Of The Day is Hopes And Fears from Noctorum’s Offer The Light, we’ve had this before, but if George can do it twice then so can we, especially as it is so appropriate at least in its title.

 

Hopes And Fears

I stare out of my window at a grey Northern sky
On a Saturday
And the smoke in the distance that clings to the hills
From the factories
And people are gathering in droves in the street
‘Cause it’s market day
And I am in love with a girl who I met
Only yesterday

Summer has gone
Lights are on
The nights have grown long
Then the town’s
Looking down
As the rain hits the ground

Then the newspaper sellers are telling us all
What’s been happening
And women are hiding in shopkeeper’s doorways
And gossiping
And you and I meet in the café across from the hospital
And finding a cure for the lovelorn
Is proving impossible

Life tumbles on
Like this song
And the music plays on
And we kiss
Like a play
With our love on display

And the sirens still call
From the factory walls
As we pray to live in peace
With the future unknown
We slowly walk home
As our hopes and fears increase

With our fate in our hands
As we lay in the sand
Will our love and life survive
But I know this is bliss
You are all that I wish
With our hopes and fears alive

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Offer The Light (2006)

Sunday has become a regular busy session day for me and excitingly Tony in Sydney is in the studio tomorrow with members of Australian legends Taman Shud recording his songs. Lovely to see the progress and see Tony’s songs find their way into a proper studio. Rajan in Brooklyn sent me a great new song today, progress. Brian in Minneapolis is finding his way into the creative spirit and coming up with cool ideas and Doug in Wappingers Falls is gathering ideas, learning songs, writing and imagining a musical future. Inspiring people inspire me to be inspired. You learn so much from the people you teach. You learn from the discussion, the analysis and the action, the exploring of the options, the creations, the different perspectives. Just watching art grow is an inspiration in itself.

I was in the studio doing the sessions today and I kept seeing shirtless bodies with no heads walking by the window. At one point a girl, a can of beer and a friend sat outside the window talking. They were sitting between the cars, it seemed like such an odd place to sit as the park is 30 seconds away. Ah, it just occurred to me, you can’t drink in the park, million dollar fine. There was a constant flow of people heading down into the park or through it to the sea front and the town beach. De Pfeffel told everyone not to gather till Monday, on this really beautiful and hot day, Dominic?

The riots in America have been really making me feel sad for the world. It seems that the problem is that people protect their own people when they do wrong, although, I read that sadist Chauvin’s wife had filed for divorce. But really, if you saw your friend kill someone what would you do? I mean, kill someone, not steal a loaf of bread, kill someone! That’s why the other three sadists have to be charged because they stood and watched him murder the guy and that poor man’s life was less important than their loyalty to their sadist mate. Tragic.

I spoke to Jerome today in Berlin about the tracks I’m working on here and as it happens Olivia’s Dad sent an article from the local paper (Bonn/Cologne area) with a picture of Tangerine Dream and there was Jerome. I guess it’s 50 years since Electronic Meditation was released. On Wikipedia’s Tangerine Dream discography 160 titles are listed from 1970 – 2020. What a legacy.

I was also talking to Ricky from Brian Jonestown Massacre today as he sent me his other band Mellow Drunk’s albums and it was an opportunity to get a list of albums from him for this Guest Listening project that is transpiring each night. So I have two more lists after tonight. I can choose my own records to play, but there’s something surprising about doing it this way, I like it.

Music today has been chosen by Sessioneer Noel from just south of London. It was Noel who donated his pristine condition collection to the In Deep Music Archive. Some great albums here I haven’t heard for a very long time.

Eno seems to be most famous for three things, ambient music, producing U2 and others as well as being in the initial lineup of Roxy Music (for two albums), but the best thing about him are his four vocal albums. Here Come The Warm Jets (1974) being his first. I played this to death when it first came out. What’s good about it is that it’s just so interesting. Interesting songs, ideas, tunes, approach. Odd lyrics, odd voice, odd arrangements. It’s arty, thoughtful, original and makes you want to wear eye-shadow and fake tiger skin. Heavy friends include Robert Fripp and John Wetton from King Crimson, Phil Manzanera, Paul Thompson, and Andy Mackay from Roxy Music, Chris Spedding from everywhere, Paul Rudolph and Simon King from Hawkwind, Marty Simons from Sharks, Bill MacCormick from Matching Mole, Busta Jones from session land. Love, love, love.

The Violent Femmes debut album took off and I’m sure it was a big surprise to everybody. Great cover art, wacky name and strange musical lineup, snare, acoustic bass, acoustic guitar and Gordon Gano’s funny voice and witty lyrics. It’s like college Folk, catchy, somehow unexpected, smart, ironic, brainy people having fun. Played with them once in Columbus, Ohio, again in California, hung out with Gordon a bit, he was nice. Saw them years ago at the Town And Country Club in London, packed out.

I hadn’t heard Lou Reed’s Berlin for such a long time. It’s another arty masterpiece. Apparently nobody bought it when it came out. That’s how you know how good it is. It’s a great album to listen to into the night, eyes closed, following the characters that Reed remembers or reimagines. A beautiful and tragic album.

The fourth album I played from Noel’s list tonight was another album by Welsh band Man, Back To The Future (1974), after Nicklas Barker’s 2oz Of Plastic With A Little Hole In The Middle from last week. A period of transition for Man with an ever-changing lineup, this was a double album, half studio, half live. It went to No. 23 in the UK chart despite original member Clive John leaving and Deke Leonard gone two albums before (missing presumed forming Iceberg). Bass player Martin Ace was also gone. My first Man experience was the next album Rhinos, Winos And Lunatics where Leonard returned. Three albums later Ace was back for one live album (Maximum Darkness), but they finally split in 1976. There had been a few lineup changes over the years with Mickey Jones the only one playing on every record. They may have been killed by Punk, but they left behind a dozen worthy albums. There’s so many great musical sections on Man albums (wait till you hear the choir on the live sides). Dig! And thanks Noel for the list.

Song Of The Day is Turn Away To The Stars, because like Man it’s not really quite part of a genre. Is it Welsh music, Pub Rock, Progressive, West Coast influenced? It’s always a result when you write a song that doesn’t fit.

 

Turn Away To The Stars

Sunlight burns me, scars and pain
Afterwards I add up the day

Multi-application, dividing time
Keeping me encouraged is enough
Kindness never hurt someone too much

I belong here, crying or laughing
I turn away to the stars

Soothing nightlight, soon comes sleep
Eating reality away
Ordering my eyes into the shade

I can win here, send me the reason
Wrapped in a kiss from the stars

(Willson-Piper)
Spirit Level (1992)

In the studio with Dare today, I was singing lead vocals on one of the tracks I wrote with Jerome Froese in Berlin last year/year before last. We were also working on an arrangement for another track from that session, playing some guitars and finding a shape. It was a beautiful day, but I didn’t get to see much of it as I was singing. Every morning when I go to bed the birds are singing, they don’t wake me, they lull me to sleep. Apparently there’s an app like Shazam, a bird app that tells you which bird is singing. Talking of noisy creatures in the trees, it’s the cicada cycle time (Brood lX) and North Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia are about to be overrun with a deafening cacophony of these amazing insects that have been living underground for 17 years. Nature is amazing. Ricky Gervais said he didn’t like Lord Of The Rings because it was nonsense. “We don’t need angels and unicorns, we’ve got the octopus. Eight legs, nine brains, three hearts and a beak”.

My granddaughter is one and a half and gorgeous and I had a lovely conversation with her Mum on Friday in Swedish, so did Olivia. I think I mentioned that Olivia has started putting Post-Its everywhere with the names of things in German, Swedish, Portuguese and Indonesian, I need to add French, Spanish and Italian, simply because I do know a lot of words in those languages and it will help me have confidence in the fact that I can learn more. I was so good at French when I was at school, but only for the first three years when our teacher was Mrs Appleton, but then we changed for the fourth and fifth year and got a Mr Pierce. There was something arrogant and condescending about him and I learned very little with him. He came up to me once and told me that Mrs Appleton had told him that I was a really good student in French and that was a big surprise to him because I wasn’t showing it. I should have told him why I was failing, his attitude, not mine.

The teacher you have is so important. We had some good ones and some bad ones. I’ve talked about Miss Lewis my form teacher before, she was pretty hot but really strict, she also taught English and used to threaten us, “woe betide”, she used to say as she gave us homework we didn’t dare not do. I’m sorry if I’ve told this before but it just keeps on coming back to mind and not everyone has been reading this blog from the start. She’d sit on the desk at the front of the class with her legs crossed which pulled up her skirt and you could see the top of her stockings (tights) and sometimes she’d flash you, it was really too much for a 15-year-old, ha ha. When I left school she pulled into the garage where I got my first job, she saw me and said, “I knew you’d end up somewhere like this” – what a bitch. How many people would improve their lives if they just got some encouragement? The problem is that not everybody responds the same way. What’s wrong with being mollycoddled? It’s better than threats, or do some respond better to threats? Ha ha. This is the problem with curriculums and classes and timetables, but what do you do, you can’t teach everybody separately. A private tutor for each subject would be nice. Teaching 30 plus kids at the same time must mean that some get it right away and some don’t. Arty kids struggle with the Maths class whereas the logical ones understand immediately and then in another class it’s the arty ones who get it and the scientific ones that don’t. When I was doing well in French, English, History and Geography, I came bottom in Maths.

Music today has been chosen by Dare and the first of his four that I listened to was Deep Purple In Rock (1970). He told me that this was the first full price record he bought. It was £2.50 and he shared the cost with his brother Dave. His Dad went mad and said, “You spent all that money on a record?!”. Ah, those were the days. It was also one of my first full price records, it’s where we learned about Ritchie Blackmore. It’s interesting how people gravitate to different things in a band that they like – the words, the voice, the drums, the guitar, even the bass, ha ha, the keyboards? Maybe, but in the case of Jon Lord, he really did make being the keyboard player something cool. Roger Glover had the hat, Paice the glasses, Gillan the shriek and the hair. Ritchie was a big influence on a 13 or 14-year-old about to get his first guitar. Lyrically, we didn’t care, we didn’t really know about lyrics yet and they even printed the lyrics on the inside of the gatefold despite their general low quality (Child In Time was alright), but it was more about the sound. When the first track starts, Speed King, with that mayhem, it was heaven for youth, hell for parents, the seventies had arrived, that screaming voice, Rock music was in, the sixties were over. It was this guitarist and record that inspired me to get a Fender Stratocaster (which I still have and used today in the studio). By the way, Child In Time on this record is a rip off of It’s A Beautiful Day’s Bombay Calling, listen here if you don’t believe me.

When we were at school in the seventies near Liverpool, most kids were into the charts and T. Rex were huge. Some of us were more into the underground bands like Purple, Black Sabbath, Led Zep, the bands that weren’t on the tele or the radio (they were still really popular though). These were the album bands and T. Rex was a singles band. I loved Jeepster and had the single, Get It On was a big hit (that drum intro) and although we (unlike some) liked both Glam and Rock we didn’t always buy the Glam acts albums. I had a choice between In Rock and Electric Warrior (1971) and chose In Rock. These days I see more in Electric Warrior especially in the lyrics, but despite the album cover with the guitar and the big amp, you can’t really put Marc Bolan next to Ritchie Blackmore as a guitarist. Get It On is such a basic R’n’R song, but the lyrics make it something else altogether: “Well you’re slim and you’re weak you got the teeth of the hydra upon you” and “You’re built like a car, you’ve got a hubcap diamond star halo”. Wow and well, it’s also a great song, but then four songs later, The Motivator is kind of a weak relative.

There is some great guitar on this album, it’s a different approach, more about the songwriting, Bolan uses it as a tool, he’s not trying to be a virtuoso, but there’s definitely some cool tones. How good you look with a guitar is as important as how well you play it, Hendrix had both down. Apart from Get It On and Jeepster there’s the wonderful Cosmic Dancer, Bolan’s lyrics and his voice are really without compare. I love Life’s A Gas and sometimes play it live. Tony Visconti producing, what’s not to like, I don’t think Blackmore looked very good with a feather boa.

Stevie Wonder’s Innervisions (1973) is one of the great Motown albums. There were lots and lots of Motown hits at the time. Temptations, Four Tops, Supremes, incredible songwriting and performance, unforgettable. Stevie Wonder was already on a roll when he released this classic album. He released two albums in 1972, Music Of My Mind and Talking Book, Fulfillingness’ First Finale came in 1974, Songs In The Key Of Life in 1976. Great songwriting, singing and often playing most of the instruments on a track. It’s hard to believe that Innervisions was Stevie Wonder’s 16th album. It’s topical, too, the song Living In The City has a section where an innocent black man is arrested by the cops and thrown in jail for ten years, this was 47 years ago.

Joni Mitchell’s classic Hejira was released in 1976. It was an unusual album in that there were no piano songs. The reason was that it was written on different road trips and one main trip she took alone by car from Maine to California. The legend that is Jaco Pastorius plays bass on four tracks, Larry Carlton plays guitar and Neil Young even appears on one track playing harmonica. One must mention the lesser known main musicians on this album, too. John Guerin was a prolific drummer who played on a lot of famous records including five Joni Mitchell albums in this time period either side of Hejira, for a while they were in a relationship, the title track is about leaving him. Max Bennett, lesser known to the public, also plays bass on the album. He joined Guerin on Zappa’s Hot Rats, played on Mitchell’s classic Court And Spark and also has an impressive resumé, too many to mention here, but the link tells you everything. We’ve mentioned percussionist Bobbye Hall and her impressive resumé before. She added an ‘e’ to the end of her name so people might know she was a woman.

Hejira is a smooth Jazzy classic and like so many of her albums, it’s beautiful, it’s intelligent and beautifully recorded, buy it and while you are there buy all her sixties and seventies albums, too. Or if you prefer contemporary artists buy all of Laura Marling’s albums, because this is her training ground.

Song Of The Day is A Girl In Every Graveyard from Noctorum’s Sparks Lane (2003). We wrote the music together, I wrote the words but Dare does a lovely job of singing it. Thanks Dare and thanks for the music picks tonight.

 

A Girl In Every Graveyard

There are no headlines in the news today
Just petty wars, far away
All these tragedies wash over me
Paper heroes they don’t interest me

If I could only get outside myself
See the garlands not the chains

Dying flowers on a broken grave
Who could know how much love you gave
A quiet shell, that’s lost the sea
How could consequence let this be
So many colours in a dying leaf
Instead of sadness there’s relief

I think you’ve bruised this heart
I just can’t get it started again
I think you’ve used this heart
And it looks like we’ve parted again

(Willson-Piper / Mason)
Noctorum – Sparks Lane (2003)

Every outrage has a time limit or it has a cure that solves the problem and it seems that the situation in Minneapolis has been addressed with the arrest for murder by the Minneapolis police officer Derek Chauvin, the man responsible for the death of George Floyd. Here in England there has been a petition of a million signatures demanding the sacking of Dominic Cummings, de Pfeffel’s No.1 advisor and all ‘round unapologetic, nasty person. The petition is of course not the cure but possibly the first treatment to fix the problem. De Pfeffel and his cronies are hoping for the outrage to die as time passes and the anger subsides, not everyone can keep it up. We are not all activists, we hope the good will out, but I don’t want to be an activist or demonstrate in the street, I don’t want to be a doctor or a nurse or a midwife or a priest. I want to write and play music, collaborate with other musicians and help people get going on their own creative journey. Read, travel, think.

Today molten sunbeams poured into the park leaving a yellow glow around the trees and a hot hazy film across the grass. I lay on the ground in black shoes and black socks, a shock of white Ieg, black shorts and black T-shirt, a slither of white neck up to my head, a white face, covered in greying black hair and covered eyes hidden by black sunglasses. I’m black and I am white like one of the songs on the new MOAT record Poison Stream (Black And White). My skin colour is irrelevant, my black clothes irrelevant, my silver hoops irrelevant. It seems that most hate is ignorance, taught by the ignorant and executed by the ignorant. It’s not getting the whole picture, all the information. I always tried to explain to my father that it was always the better-dressed nutters with the short hair that chased us, wanted trouble. And yet my Mum always used to say in a disappointed voice, wait for it, “You look like you’ve been pulled through a hedge backwards”. Ha ha, thanks Mum. I was scruffy but not violent, a better option I thought. And my Dad was always angry about the length of my hair, it stood for rebellion for him, made him think I was ungrateful for giving me a home. Why are parents so stupid, unable to see past the exterior and into their childrens’ hearts? It’s incredible how society so easily judges and misunderstands without all the facts. When will they realize that you don’t see stoners in a brawl. Luckily not all well-dressed men with shorter hair want to beat you up or we’d be in big trouble.

I had two sessions today, one with new person Kadeem in London and the other with Brian in Orlando, Florida. I have to tell you that Brian has found me a couple of albums for the archive on his travels around the record stores, Clear by Spirit (1969) and Jon Anderson’s first solo album, Olias Of Sunhillow (1976). I need a list somewhere on my website of the records that the archive is missing, for you to know and for me to take note of. This is obviously the wrong way ‘round because what would be best would be to have all the albums in the archive listed but that would take me years to compile, I need an army of interns.

I learned today that the most stolen car in America was the Honda Civic followed by the Honda Accord, the car thieves must have communicated this to each other. The Honda must be easier to steal than other cars. In the UK it’s the Ford Fiesta followed by the Land Rover/Range Rover. Someone I knew once told me that he came out of the pub, went up to his car, put his key into the door lock, opened the door, got in, put his key in the ignition and was about to start the engine when he realized something was wrong – it wasn’t his car. When you think about it, it’s like songs, how many different keys can there be?

Music today has been chosen by blog reader and listener David Jenkins. Thank you David. So, you readers out there can send a list of records for me to spin, say a minimum of six in case I don’t have a couple of them and I will try and get to your list if I can – I got to David’s. You can send a list of anything and it’s very possible I have them in the archive and it’s possible I don’t, let’s see, In Deep wants to grow, it told me this morning, got me thinking about the missing records list.

Osibisa’s Heads (1972), their third album, is a Soul, Funk, Jazz Fusion, Highlife, Afrobeat mix, warm and joyous, grooving its way into your heart. Their origins were Ghana, West Africa, moving to London in 1969, releasing their first self-titled album as well as their second album, Woyaya, in 1971 with the help of Caribbean musicians who they met in London, including Wendell Richardson from Antigua on lead vocals and guitar. Their original album covers were by Roger Dean. They kept the logo for Heads, but the album cover artwork is by German artist Mati Klarwein, who also did the classic Miles Davis covers for Live-Evil (1971) and Bitches Brew (1970). Carlos Santana used one of Klarwein’s paintings for his classic second album Abraxas (1970).

On the subject of Santana, Caravanserai (1972) was the fourth album and explored more of the Jazz influences and less of the Salsa Rock – out of ten songs only three have vocals. This was the last appearance in the band for Neal Schon and Gregg Rolie who went on to form Journey to huge success. It’s an album of music, not hits or career moves. Clive Davis, boss of Columbia records, called it “commercial suicide”.

Santana’s album with John McLaughlin, Love, Devotion, Surrender (1973), is a real jamming guitar fest. I haven’t listened to this record for years. Inspired by Guru Sri Chinmoy’s teachings – love, devotion and surrender, it became the title of the album (they were both disciples). Dedicated to John Coltrane it’s a frantic album of fast guitars and relentless rhythms. Best put by Robert Palmer reviewing for Rolling Stone, “a series of ecstatic jams on Coltrane and Coltrane-influenced material”. It sounds like a guitar war to me – but I like it.

Little Feat’s Time Loves A Hero (1977) was the last album released by the band when leader Lowell George was still alive. He appeared on one more album, Down On The Farm (1979), released soon after his death from a heart attack. He was 34, granted, he overate, took bad drugs and drank too much. But why were they so loved as a band and respected by other musicians and what were they like? Well Wikipedia says this:

“Over its 50-year history, the band’s music has remained an eclectic blend of swamp pop, rock and roll, blues, boogie, country, folk, blues rock, soul, New Orleans R&B and swamp rock influences. Guitarist Jimmy Page stated Little Feat was his favorite American band in a 1975 Rolling Stone interview.”

Day At The Dog Races is a 6.27 instrumental that explains what they do best. Like Jeff Beck, I can sometimes do without the Rock ‘n’ Roll Boogie songs and lyrics, but then when you order toast don’t complain about the burnt bread. This is also a later album, I think if you listen from the beginning and end up here you’ll become a fan.

Song Of The Day is Dressed Up As You, seems somehow appropriate after Little Feat, not for vibe or groove, but because it seems to come from America. It’s an extra track on the recent vinyl re-release of Hanging Out In Heaven that we will hopefully have available for you to buy via Bandcamp along with the Atlantaeum Flood vinyl when Bandcamp waive their fees for the third time on June 5th.

 

Dressed Up As You

I was thinking as I stared into a stream
And dusk fell into darkness through the trees
And time just disappeared with the light
My thoughts had spanned from daytime into night

Well there’s a valley full of tears which I must swim
And sometimes I am drowning from within
But you cast a light out to my heart
Have tied together that which fell apart

Can I tell you I love you one more time
As the day leaves your impression on my mind
Is a dream still a dream when it’s come true
And strides into the room dressed up as you

Can I pour you another glass of wine
It’s lain here unopened for some time
Well I’ve been keeping it for birthdays or New Year’s
To celebrate a lifetime of my fears

When all was lost and faith had passed me by
And the thought of love was reason just to cry
And descending like an angel from above
Was the stream of light that’s you my love

Can I tell you I love you one more time
As the day leaves your impression on my mind
Is a dream still a dream when it’s come true
And strides into the room dressed up as you

Can I tell you I love you one more time
As the day leaves your impression on my mind
Is a dream still a dream when it’s come true
And strides into the room dressed up as you

(Willson-Piper)
Pegasus EP (2008) / Hanging Out In Heaven (2019)