Sleep! What a weird thing it is, how easily we accept it, how much we enjoy it, but really it’s the ultimate lockdown. If the aliens came down and learned about our civilization, they might be very surprised to hear (if they have ears) that we spend a third of our lives unconscious.

That means that in my case I’ve been asleep for over 20 years. Actually, in my case it’s longer because I have always been a big sleeper. Friends used to come around to my house on Saturday afternoons and bang loudly on my bedroom window. They knew I was in there, but I just didn’t wake up. Anyone that knows me knows that throughout my life I have been a serious migraine sufferer. When I was a kid I had a specialist who told my parents that he’d never seen it so bad. My symptoms were distorted vision, followed by slurred speech or aphasia, a blinding headache, vomiting, high sensitivity to light, noise and touch. A door handle squeak, a blade of light through the curtains, the sheet on my skin was unbearable. Other times there would be numbness in my fingers, arms or face and sometimes my arms just locked. This went on for many years from childhood through school into playing music.

There’s been a lot of talk about the cause of migraine and there’s been a lot of misunderstanding from those that don’t get it. It’s way more than a headache, it’s way more than a really, really bad headache. It’s incapacitating, it’s terrible pain and with the vomiting it’s dehydrating, making the headache worse and it’s generally exhausting. I could be sick for a week. Keeping food down is initially impossible, even keeping water down didn’t work. Causes have been attributed to red wine, cocoa, bananas, MSG, orange juice, chemicals in food, bright light in the eyes, strobes, stress, anxiety, lack of sleep, too much sleep, tight muscles in the neck, changes in air pressure.

At the age of twelve I was prescribed to two different tablets before I went to bed. The first was a little blue pill called Dixarit which contains clonidine. Clonidine is often used for sleep disorders in children and is used to treat ADD (attention deficit disorder). It’s also supposed to work on widening the blood vessels to create a better blood flow. Side effects include dry mouth, headache, nausea and fatigue. I had to take two of these every night, when I wasn’t sick. I also had to take a Valium – at twelve. No wonder I had problems waking up. To add insult to injury as I was unable to easily wake up my father would call me for school and when I didn’t get out of bed he would throw a glass of water in my face.

This went on for many years. I don’t remember when I stopped with the tablets, but I would get the attacks sporadically. When I left England for Australia in my early twenties I found myself in a country where it seemed like everyone I met smoked grass. I joined in and religiously smoked marijuana for at least ten years. In that time I never got a migraine, when I stopped they came back. And I can assure you my abilities to function were far better stoned than they ever were living with the fear of when the next migraine was coming.

These days I’m a drug, alcohol, cigarette, meat and fish free zone. I find all those things to be unnecessary, the only thing I would possibly do would be smoke some grass, not that I have more than once or twice for years, but it’s not out of the question. Cigarette and alcohol damage versus marijuana damage in the world – please, gimme a break!

Later on in life, working through the migraine problem, I tried acupuncture and it felt good, I thought it helped as did yoga, swimming and a generally healthy lifestyle. In the event of an attack I began using a drug called Sumatripan that you could take in a nasal spray or tablet form. The idea was that it widened the blood vessels and worked as a sedative. So for years I never went anywhere without this plastic one shot disposable nasal shot. I carried tablets as well. This worked as well as working after the event could. I could usually sleep it off, but the strength of the attack varied. As the years went by it seemed the attacks would be regular, but less nasty. One time I forgot my nasal spray and didn’t have any tablets. I lost my vision and got a dull headache, but it didn’t develop any more than that, apart from feeling a bit weak and hazy. So next time it happened I didn’t take the drugs and nowadays I just try to ride it out. It usually starts with the distorted vision, only able to see half of things. That goes away in about half an hour. It starts in one eye like diamonds growing and then makes it’s way across from one side of my eye to the other and then dissipates. It’s followed by that uncomfortable dull headache and feeling like crap for the rest of the day. A can of coke, sunglasses and Pink Floyd quietly in the background usually helps.

Luckily it only happened once on stage with the ex band when I had to immediately stop and the band had to carry on without me. But strobes were a problem, we used them rarely and when we did have them I had to close my eyes tight. I could never go and see a band that used strobes. I remember once walking off stage at the Town And Country Club in London, second night with All About Eve as a migraine hit. The last time it happened was on Olivia and my last tour in Germany where I continued to play and sing although I couldn’t see properly. I’m sure I gave some kind of intense performance. This was a real result, years ago I would never have been able to do that. In fact on a couple of occasions I tried to ignore it, to work through it with varying results. Sometimes I felt really bad but managed and other times I got a particularly serious attack.

I suppose that anyone with any kind of affliction or disability just has to find a way to live with it and that’s what I have done. Happily it’s all calmed down now and is nowhere near the problem it was, but as I approach my 62nd birthday on Thursday (hint) this affliction has been replaced by others such as bad knees whether standing up, sitting down or trying to rest on them, failing eyesight, probable hearing damage and hearing loss and aches and pains galore. Ha ha, those aliens told me recently that being human seems tricky.

So I am determined to be positive and happy, nothing else is acceptable. Staying busy, making music, being generally creative, try and help others out with their creative issues through the sessions and keep on spreading the word about music (books and films too if I ever get the time). Friends, family, wherever you are, I love you.

Music today has gone determinedly early eighties starting with the great and mostly forgotten Comsat Angels from Sheffield and their second album, Sleep No More (1981). It was the only album to (almost) crack the top 50 in the UK (No. 51), the following two albums, Fiction and Land, hit the nineties. But that was it. They reached No. 44 with this album in New Zealand. Such a great band and hearing them back in the same breath as these other early eighties bands it’s hard to determine what went wrong commercially – I guess they were too serious, too good, wrong hair maybe.

Talking of great hair I went for Crocodiles by Liverpool heroes, Echo & the Bunnymen, and I have to say it’s a wonderful album, the songs, the words, the mood, McCulloch’s voice and the band with Will Sergeant on guitar and that fantastic rhythm section of Les Pattinson on bass and Pete de Freitas on drums. How sad that we lost him. The Bunnymen were of course the most successful of this quartet of bands with lots of well deserved acclaim.

We toured America with Wolverhampton’s Mighty Lemon Drops. I played their debut Happy Head (1986) tonight. I’m distant mates with Dave Newton, the guitarist. Very much a Bunnymen sound, but Dave played these weird Italian guitars that gave him his own sound. They managed an album in the UK Top 40, their second album World Without End reaching No. 34, the debut No. 58.

Following this I had to play The Sound from London. One of the great underrated bands of the eighties. It’s the saddest story of all as singer Adrian Borland left us prematurely. We covered I Can’t Escape Myself from their first album Jeopardy (1980) on last year’s Afterdeath EP by Noctorum and that will be today’s Song Of The Day. It’s time for bed, a busy week ahead unwrapping all of those presents.

The song isn’t available on YouTube, but you can listen to it on Bandcamp here:

I CAN’T ESCAPE MYSELF

 So many feelings
Pent up in here
Left all alone, I’m with
The one I most fear
I’m sick and I’m tired
Of reasoning
Just want to break out
Shake off this skin

I, I can’t
Escape myself

All my problems
Loom larger than life
I can’t swallow
Another slice
Seems like my shadow
Mocks every stride
Can I learn to live with
What’s trapped inside?

I, I can’t
Escape myself

So many feelings
Pent up in here
Left all alone, I’m with
The one I most fear
I’m sick and I’m tired
Of reasoning
Just wanna break out
Shake off this skin

I, I can’t
Escape myself
I, I can’t
Escape myself
I, I, I can’t
Escape myself

(Adrian Borland)
Jeopardy (1980)

I wonder if Mother Nature has bad days? Days when she has a headache. Days when she just doesn’t feel like it. Days when she thinks Oh God! (Ha ha.) Today was somehow drab, there was no enthusiasm in it, no life. It was a bit cold, but not too cold, it was a bit warm, but not warm enough. The breeze was weak but irritating. The sky was almost cloudy, the sun nearly came out. It looked like it was going to rain, but it didn’t. The sea didn’t know what colour it was and the choppy waves were pathetic, half-hearted. The seagulls were flying, but they weren’t using their wings, they were just lazily floating in the air going round and round in circles. When one of them, the big one with the black wings did swoop down and take something edible from the sea, the others didn’t bother to challenge for the feast. Usually when one finds a source of food they all swoop down and try to steal it, not today.

Today was a day to be indoors which seems like a bizarre idea based on the recent weeks. But it was just one of those days where you would curl up with a good book or watch an afternoon movie. Biscuits, the cat, tea and ignoring the phone. Still, I found myself outside with that recycling excuse to make a trip to see the sea and before all the plastic overwhelmed the kitchen. If two people can create this much plastic what must it be like for a family of five? How can we find a way to live in the world without packaging? Who remembers the CD long box? When the trusty old vinyl was being overshadowed, made obsolete by digital technology, some bright spark came up with the idea that as vinyl was big and CDs were small that CDs needed to have a bigger presence in the store to attract the attention of the customer. Otherwise, Michael Jackson fans wouldn’t be able to find his new album. Well, it lasted for a while and eventually they were phased out and all that excess cardboard was saved. Later they came up with the idea of the Digipak when people started to tire of the generic easily breakable plastic jewel box. The problem with the Digipak was that it wasn’t as durable and was easily damaged in shop shelves and when transported, creating a financial loss for the stores due to damaged product.

Does anybody remember what CDs were like when they first came out, I mean their presentation? They were very basic. It was actually an insult to the customer, especially with the reissues. ‘I can’t wait to get the reissue of Strange Days on CD so I can retire that horrible bulky, scratchy vinyl copy that I’ve had since 1968’. So down to the store you would go and for some silly price you’d get a digital version of that groundbreaking Doors album. What you actually got was an overpriced thin and flimsy cover with bad colour separation, sometimes with none of the original sleeve notes and anything that was there was too small to read and badly printed. Cheap as possible, no effort and the CD mastering was a joke. It was so trebly and harsh that dogs were dying in the streets as they went past new CD buyers’ open windows. The record business instead of seeing it as an opportunity to create something sonically better, a way to improve the medium, more compact, easier to store (and all that nonsense), instead created a nasty cheap, horrible sounding replica of your most treasured music for their own profit. A record that had paid for itself 50 times over with a deal that let the record labels take millions of dollars in new revenue with zero commitment – except for the extra cardboard.

Things improved, sure, but it wasn’t just the CDs, it was also the CD players. All that laser technology needed more research and so early CD players – were crap. Nowadays there’s something to be said for CD quality, CD players have improved, the packaging is much better, imaginative and attractive, but guess what, now nobody wants them. Instead they are going for streaming sites which allow access to everything you would want for next to no money, with no storage issues and you can’t scratch them if you can’t get your careless, greasy unloving mitts on them. This also means that you don’t need that cumbersome stereo system with the bulky speakers that you never know where to put in the room, taking up space where there could be a nice small brass table with a souvenir from Italy on it. You don’t need that dust attracting amp that has all those wires trailing out of it that the cat keeps on chewing. Last of all who needs that impractical turntable when you can’t put your dinner plate on the lid in case it cracks, or your coffee cup without leaving a mark or spilling something and then you can’t use the damn thing because it’s sticky. Then there’s the needle. It needs changing every now and again and even when you put a new needle in it clogs up with dust and suddenly the tone arm skates across the record. Plus there’s the trying to fit the damn fiddly thing. What a hassle and should it be double sided, is it a sapphire or a diamond, does the price difference really make a difference when I treat the records so badly anyway?

The records themselves – too big, too fragile, you can’t lean them against the radiator, or leave them in the sun, you can’t leave them out, you can’t find them amongst the other records. It’s a disaster. With the internet you don’t need all these hassles and best of all you don’t need any speakers because in your computer there’s already a speaker as there is in your phone. It is so much better than it used to be – less hassle, more choice, cheaper.

The aesthetics of handling the records, better sound, the larger cover art, gatefolds, the soft release of the needle onto the grooves, the warmth, the break in the middle to turn the record over, the importance of the sequencing that the band sweated over for weeks to get right, the mastering, the atmosphere, the smell of a new record, the sensuality of the experience, the dimmed lights that the experience demands. The different label designs, the sleeve notes. Like books, the gravitas records give to a room. The caring for them, the relationship with your records, the love, thank GOD they came back in some form and that the sonic entities didn’t just relegate records (or books) to the past – yet.

Music today has again found its way to 1969. After Janis I wondered what Laura Nyro was doing that year. It was of course New York Tendaberry, one of her most intense albums. You can see Todd Rundgren falling off his chair as he listened to this and saw a whole other world of songwriting and soulful expression.

Next came Joni Mitchell’s second album Clouds. Somehow not on the radar as much as her other albums despite the fact that it has her version of her much covered song Both Sides Now (recorded first by Judy Collins in 1968). It’s been recorded by Frank Sinatra and well, by hundreds of other artists. This also has the original versions of Chelsea Morning and I Don’t Know Where I Stand which Fairport Convention recorded on their debut album released in 1968 and sung by the great Judy Dyble. (This was the album before Sandy Denny joined the band.)

Well 1969 was something of a turning point so we got a little heavier in here and found an unusual Australian copy of Led Zeppelin 1 on the green Atlantic label. It’s such a great record, despite the stealing. Amazing guitar sounds, fantastic drumming and bass playing and Plant standing in the front and making that unique sound with his vocal chords!

How do you follow that? Easy, the debut Stooges album. I have a nice re-release from Rhino that sounds like somebody really cared about the sound when they remastered it and reissued it. What a great record it is, too. Iggy at times sounds a bit like Jim Morrison and Ian McCulloch sounds a bit like both of them from this era.

So it’s been a while since I heard the new Abbey Road with the extra double album with all the outtakes. Luckily I found a mint copy of it second hand, because these Beatles reissues are way too expensive. I’m still saving up for the multi CD version of the White Album which is over 100 pounds, still it is my birthday next week! Ha ha!

Song Of The Day today is Waves Towards The Moon as an encouragement for Mother Nature to fight back.

 

Waves Towards The Moon

Only stones
That skim across
The surface of the sea
I have thrown
To see if Neptune
Sends them back to me

If you talk
Then words will only
Splinter into sound
Where’s the sun
When all your conversations
Shadow bound

Time waits for you
And I do too

Wind in the curtains
I am so certain
Did I hear your silky tune
Tapped on my window
You make the night glow
Then you’re gone like the
Waves towards the moon

Presence felt
I can’t see you
But I know you’re there
It’s like you melt
And disappear like water
In the air

Just a glimpse
Somewhere in the corner of my eye
Upon your lips I will settle
Like a butterfly

Time waits for you
And I do too

Wind in the curtains
I am so certain
Did I hear your silky tune
Tapped on my window
You make the night glow
Then you’re gone
Like the waves towards the moon

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

At some point in the seventies, pretty much against the already mixed flow of my musical taste that was straddling the Glam singles of T. Rex, The Sweet and Mott The Hoople, the Rock LP sound of Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin and Uriah Heep with the softer sounds of Crosby, Stills & Nash, Neil Young and Roy Harper and the spacey sounds of Hawkwind and Pink Floyd, I found myself falling in love with Janis Joplin.

It wasn’t a poster on my wall, my walls were full of posters already from the middle of Sounds magazine (all thrown away by my family when I moved out, along with my Michael Moorcock books and my complete set of World Cup football star coins collected from the petrol station). I saw that magical woman on the inside of the double In Concert album released in 1972, two years after her death, with concerts from San Francisco, Detroit, Toronto and Calgary. Side 1&2 were with Big Brother And Holding Company and Sides 3&4 with Full Tilt Boogie Band. Her voice and her picture captivated me. When I heard her sing Summertime I was completely mesmerized, enchanted, under her spell. I listened to that album so many times, studied the bangles around her wrist and marvelled at her straw hair. Also inside the gatefold were the sleeve notes written by Clive Davis who signed her to CBS records and who would later sign the ex band to Arista. If you think I just cut and pasted this from the net, no, I didn’t, I typed them out myself with my dodgy typing technique of error and fix later. I can’t find them online anywhere, it seems like a service to Rock ‘n’ Roll that needed to be done…so here they are:

I first saw Janis Joplin at the Monterey Pop Festival in the summer of 1967. She was then an unknown, being given the opportunity to perform on the same stage with the reigning greats of the popular music world. Janis instinctively sensed this was her moment because she was never more vibrant, more electric or more triumphant. Seeing her for the first time was an experience I’ll never forget. She tore at your insides and tingled every nerve. Her raw power and electricity was awesome. From Monterey Janis went on to become a world wide phenomenon. A tough and earthy exterior hid a vulnerable, sensitive ego, with both fighting and interacting all the time. “Piece Of My Heart” and “Summertime” – “Ball and Chain” and “Me and Bobby McGee” – each was a different part of a tremendously unique person and performer.

Janis lived like a flame in the wind – always at her most intense. The flame was, of course, her brilliant talent, itself a living thing always visible and audible in performance. Not a quiet talent but a robust, vigorous, bursting flare of creativity. She honored it and fed it with every last ounce of physical and emotional energy at her command. The result, the effect, was undeniable – a force so compelling it rode down fatigue, strain, endurance, to the very limits of human capacity.

But she was human, a human being. Given a gentler time, she might have lived more years. But she also might have burned less brightly, less intensely. The wind into which she sang was the wind of the 60s, a time of unprecedented cross-currents. The air of the time was a wind that blew away cobwebs and prejudices by the thousands, but was cruelest to those who stood exposed and did not try to hide.

Janis sang in the eye of the hurricane. She didn’t simply “sing” a song – she ravaged it, tore it to shreds, exploded it. And yet, at the right moment, she could be incredibly gentle. Caressing each word with tenderness and understanding. The energy of a lifetime she put into a few short years. Janis “live” could sing down the wind. Or start it up again if it fell silent. Her records – recordings of these “live” performances – are her testament. Hearing them now, they inspire not so much mere admiration and applause – but awe. We are awed that one human being – yes, greatly gifted and talented but still one person – could give so much.

Clive Davis (President CBS Records)

Some years ago whilst staying at the Highland Gardens Hotel in Los Angeles I discovered that this hotel used to be called The Landmark Motor Hotel and this was the place where Janis Joplin died. I asked reception if I could visit her room (Room 105) and they said yes. I wound my way around the corridors until I came to the door. I let myself in and closed the door behind me. I just stood there. The room didn’t seem to have changed much since that fateful day on October 4th 1970. There was an old wooden closet of some kind that seemed like it had been there since the sixties. I just closed my eyes and thought about her. There was no ghost, nothing left, just that voice resonating through my brain.

As you might have guessed, music tonight has been exclusively Janis Joplin, In Concert from 1972 that I mentioned at the beginning featuring two of her bands, Big Brother And The Holding Company and the Full Tilt Boogie Band. Next came Pearl that was released three months after her death in 1970 reaching No.1 in the US Charts and featuring her classic vocal performance on the Kris Kristofferson penned song, Me And Bobby McGee, a No.1 US single and who can’t love her a cappella Mercedes Benz and irreverent sense of humour.

Cheap Thrills by Big Brother And The Holding Company was the other album that I played to death starting with Combination Of The Two. I never knew which of the two guitarists, James Gurley or Sam Andrew, was playing all those mad solos, I loved the wild approach. Joplin’s voice on this album is so amazing. Somehow she sings low gruff and soft sensitive high notes at the same time. This is my favourite album by Janis and especially great with this raw band, it also reached No.1 on the US charts in 1968. For some reason I never got the first Big Brother album with Janis, something I have to fix.

I Got Dem Ol’ Kozmic Blues Again Mama (1969) with the Kozmic Blues Band was the band and album between Cheap Thrills and Pearl. At this point she had left Big Brother under pressure to work with studio musicians. This was a step away from the Psychedelic Blues Rock of Cheap Thrills and headed more in a Soul direction with brass, Janis took Sam Andrew with her for this album with a new band. It also featured Mike Bloomfield from Electric Flag on guitar who also played with the controversial electric band that Dylan brought to the Newport Folk Festival.

Go love Janis, she’s amazing.

Song Of The Day today is Janis Joplin live singing Summertime at Gröna Lund in Stockholm with Full Tilt Boogie Band in 1969.

Sitting on a big stone on the beach has become a luxury. That long list of things we take for granted has been glaring out from under the fridge magnet. There on the beach with the cucumber green sea lapping against my feet I feel grateful. A fishing boat was returning from its catch and we all know that sympathy for fish will never shake up the sometimes aggressive and defensive ridiculing entitled carnivores. As I look down at my leather shoes I wonder if the so called hypocrisy that these opinionated brutes throw at you has ever had them consider that veganism might be about one’s preferred diet, not proselytizing? I’m not vegan, I just don’t eat fish, meat or eggs, I do eat honey and cheese. It feels really good not to eat meaty anything, but why? When I gave up meat 37 years ago I went from always having digestion issues to never having digestion issues at all through food intake. A man in Sweden once told me that Swedish people don’t generally get indigestion. Ha ha. Claiming terrible food (nothing to do with meat) messed up your digestion and food in Sweden was better balanced on the whole. Fast food places have of course ruined everything. A quality burger store on the same street as McDonalds might not do as well, even if the prices were comparable. But back to eating meat, the idea that not eating animals is a good thing came to me later, it wasn’t originally why I stopped. Hindus are horrified at the thought of eating cows, they are sacred to them. Even as a meat eater I couldn’t see that killing a giraffe was anything more than barbaric and I guess a cow is a giraffe in an uglier suit.

Then there’s the wet markets. So in China people eat bats or snakes? Well in France they eat horse meat and frogs’ legs and snails. In Arabia they eat sheep’s eyeballs. In Japan they eat raw fish. In England they eat tripe, sheep’s brains, paté, in Scotland haggis. In Spain they eat goat’s testicles, in South America they eat all kinds of insects. In Norway and Iceland they eat boiled sheep’s head. In Africa locusts and everywhere in the world liver and kidney. In Papua New Guinea there’s still cannibalism. As a vegetarian the whole world seems to be making some bizarre choices about what kind of food they put into their bodies, especially compared with fresh vegetables. It’s a wonder that more people aren’t healthier, because it just feels so much better. Better in the body and better in the brain, unhealthy sickness is the worst. I don’t personally care what people do, I’m not an activist and it’s a free world (for some), but cigarettes and alcohol, sugar, meat full of hormones. It doesn’t really compare to…well as I said I’m not an activist or a preacher. As a lad growing up in the North of England I had to figure out what worked for me. My initial choices were either meat and two veg or beans on toast. I’d never eaten avocado till I’d been to Australia, it changed my life, but it took me 22 years to try it, just to be aware of it as food.

Perhaps learning to love animals or people is the same as learning to love music, it takes heart. I always wonder what people would listen to if there was no promotion, no DJs, no image. Like politics, what if there was no lobbying, arm twisting, bribes, threats? Families have been torn apart by Trump and he seems to me to be quite a vicious and vindictive man. A more honourable man might encourage rigorous debate between the different sides, find common ground. Unrealistic as it may seem for his congressmen it might lead to a more reasonable way of running a government if they voted with their hearts and not be under pressure from their peers or their constituents or through the fear of being attacked by the boss. A divisive man might suppress the opinion of his own people so as to halt debate with the other side. What’s the good of that? Your side doesn’t always agree with you, you don’t have absolute power, nobody should. Can you imagine living in that atmosphere, where you can’t say what you think or feel without getting abuse or ridicule. The polarizing of opinion has meant that there’s no chance of compromise or proper debate just fuelling the fires of hate with provocation. Society is still fighting racism, sexism and it wasn’t so long ago you could get attacked for having long hair. I remember getting hassled in Jamaica, because I had my ears pierced. In France they banned the hijab. How do we bring this world together? By leading by example and having a heart as well as power. This president’s radical policies are so hard to argue when he attacks anyone that doesn’t go along with his whims. You’d feel better if he was just a man with a different plan that you could reason with. Imagine that.

That sky was billowing with clouds today, a gusty wind blowing the clouds past the sun so the Earth was momentarily put into shadow. The air immediately felt colder. They say that one day the sun will burn out and if we are the only beings around this part of the galaxy and if we don’t have the technology to leave this place, then the human race will die, forgotten, a brief moment in time. Are we doomed to always look back on wars and suffering? Imagine if all our resources were put towards saving the human race instead of destroying it. The only solace is that overall it used to be worse but with 30 million filing for unemployment in America, it seems that the privileged mighty also have to learn how to suffer, but guaranteed all this will take a bigger toll on poorer people. The only equality in all this is that both rich and poor die.

Music today has been 1969 (mostly). Tony Visconti has remixed Bowie’s first album and called it Space Oddity. I bought it in Liverpool in the HMV Black Friday discounts and only just got to it today. That was an expensive day because there were lots of records that were 20% off that I wanted. You just end up spending way more than you would have done overall. This might have been the first time that I heard the name Hermione (Letter To Hermione) before J. K. Rowling came and made it a household name. I was enjoying Wild Eyed Boy From Freecloud tonight.

Same year, Keith Christmas (real name) released his album Stimulus (CD). He played acoustic guitar on Bowie’s album. Sometime in the seventies I saw him live at Liverpool Stadium. It might have been supporting Hawkwind? Stimulus suffers a little from the era and the ‘jolly vaudeville’ as All Music Guide calls it, that appears way too early on the album (Bedsit Two-Step). But there really are some cool tracks on this record, you just have to wait for them. Track 1, Travelling Down, is a contender and also the longer Trial And Judgement.

In 1969 the concept of the groovy bedsit came to the fore with all kinds of Bohemians in furry jackets buying guitars and retiring to their rooms with beautiful long haired girls, tea and funny cigarettes. Al Stewart’s first album was called Bedsitter Images. His second, Love Chronicles, was released in 1969 and has lots of an uncredited Jimmy Page playing electric guitar with long wordy songs. Highly recommended. I met Al Stewart in San Juan Capistrano in California when I went to see him there. When he heard that a member of the ex band was there he wanted to meet me – he lived in California and I guess he had a radio. He told me that before John Lennon, Yoko Ono was his girlfriend.

The late Duncan Browne who died tragically of cancer at the age of 46 made Give Me Take You in 1968. (I have a CD.) Unlike most of the other British bedsitter, singer, guitarists, he played nylon string guitars. (Although Bowie was heavily into the 12 string.) Again wordy thoughtful songs. Colin Blunstone told me that they shared a flat in Earl’s Court. In 1972 he had a hit with the song Journey, played on acoustic nylon string guitar. My friend Ed Rogers recorded the song Alfred Bell from his first album and I played bass on it (I think) at Tony Shanahan’s studio somewhere in New Jersey. (He’s Patti Smith’s only constant musical companion these days.)

Next and back in 1969, Roy Harper and Folkjokeopus. It’s worth it just for the 18 minute McGoohan’s Blues, great lyrics and great singing. She’s The One – also great. If you haven’t brought Roy Harper into your life yet, stop everything and do it now, there’s a lot to get through.

Jake Holmes’ self-titled album from 1969 was his third. You know about the original versions of Dazed And Confused that appeared on his first album, The Above Ground Sound Of Jake Holmes (1967). I always wondered was he trying to separate himself from the hip underground with that title, or was he just being clever-clever? By the time he got to this album he was in Nashville and not afraid of a Country influence, but there’s some good songs on the record. After this album he went on to co-write (with Four Season’s Bob Gaudio) all the songs on Frank Sinatra’s Watertown, sadly it didn’t really work out commercially, the album not making the US Top 100, still, imagine.

Today’s Song Of The Day is I Must Have Fallen from Nightjar. Drop D and sprawling.

 

I Must’ve Fallen

Greenest eyes overbite
Skin like light what a sight
When I first saw you

Standing there unaware
Your neck bare yellow hair
I already adore you

Fingers long that linger on
Singer sings a song so long
Especially for you

I wonder if you’ll hear the riff
The lift, the voices drift
All over you

I must’ve fallen in love with you

Your mouth that moves and soothes
And chooses words and coos
I just wanna talk to you

If I’m awake for heaven’s sake
Let’s not make mistakes
I don’t wanna hide from you

So come to me this plea
From me to you to see
If you’ll let me inside of you

You’re a dream it seems
Soft serene velveteen
I just wanna sleep with you

I must’ve fallen in love with you (I really wanna see you)

(Willson-Piper)
Nightjar (2008)

Olivia walked out today into a storm, a coldish windy day at the end of April when spring is supposed to be here. No bother, I remember being in Sweden once and I woke up on a day at the end of April and there had been a massive drop of snow in the middle of the night. To be honest I don’t mind, I like the wind and I like the rain like I like the sun and the blue sky, but too much heat and too much rain are equally painful. It’s all about the balance – in everything, right? But today it was a squall, the wind blowing the rain sideways and then stopping for a bit and then coming back again. I ran through the streets with my towel on my head and sunglasses living both summer and winter simultaneously.

Lots of news today. Record Store Day has moved again till the end of each month from August to November. It comes with a new name for this unprecedented situation, RSD Drops. I’m happy to announce that my 2008 album Nightjar will be one of those vinyl releases although at this point we are not sure which month. It all adds to the intrigue. Nightjar will be released exclusively in a limited edition gatefold on red vinyl through Schoolkids Records. We’ll let you know the details of the release date as we get them.

In other hot news Bandcamp has again decided to have another day where they waive their fees so anything you buy from us either digital or physical goes directly to us. This time we have more things available than last time. We have extra stock of T-shirts and CDs in the US which will help postage if you live there. The big day is May 1st and it’s just for 24 hours, so don’t miss it. Any questions you can send us a mail and we’ll help as much as we can.

I’ve been meaning to write about the video release of The Churchhill Garden’s new song which stars me and Olivia as well as me old mate Mark Burgess from The Chameleons. Also starring our friend Andy Jossi who is the composer and instrumentalist and Krissy Vanderwoude who sings and who wrote the words. The song is called We Can Dream and will be today’s Song Of The Day at the end of this post.

I was also thinking today to remind you to check out the In Deep Playlist on the site to see which records we have been spinning this month. Tomorrow is the last day of April so we will start afresh on May 1st. In my mind, in my dreams I will be doing some Spotify playlists for your listening pleasure, but I’m so busy with sessions, studio, blog, and life, that I’m not finding any big blocks of free time, but I will do my best and will post anything that I do. I didn’t even get to watch Star Trek tonight.

We listened to a mix of Space Summit song 9 tonight as we get close to completing the album. All will be revealed when we have all the songs and we’ve thought about how we are going to present it, when, where, all that needs to be decided, but I just can’t wait for you to hear it. As I was just nipping in and out of the studio today as Dare was mixing I did find some time to get better organized in the archive and actually got to put some records away, so whilst pottering I was throwing on all kinds of CDs that will appear in today’s music picks.

Also I trust this more newsy blog today doesn’t have you craving for more intense philosophical ruminations, surreal stories, true life-changing experiences shared and intriguing considerations. We are all living this bizarre reality at the moment and it must surely be a time of reflection. What are we doing? Why are we doing it? I got busy, but for a lot of people there’s more free time, no commute, working more or completely from home. Less social life and therefore more indoor contemplation. I’m busy because some people out there are taking this time to doing something creative, work on ideas they’ve been meaning to get to for a long time and now they finally can. The Songwriting & Guitar Guidance is open. If you are healthy and not freaking out about how you are going to survive like a lot of people are, I would recommend not wasting this time, because it may not happen again. In fact we hope it won’t and if it doesn’t then everything you do now might just give you the future you want. Let’s hope so.

So music today has been very varied CD and vinyl, due to the pottering and filing and sorting. Starting with one of Mexico’s great bands of yore, Los Dug Dug’s from Durango. Mostly unknown outside their home country they made their own special brand of Psychedelic Beat music and thanks to that dastardly internet we can find their records at least on CD and probably on vinyl if you have the cash. This one is from 1971.

There’s a very sweet album called Analog Man by Joe Walsh released in 2012. It’s so lovely and sincere that you have to smile when you hear it. As always with Joe the guitar sounds and playing are really great and his unique voice gives it that familiarity. Produced by Jeff Lynne (you can always tell), Ringo plays drums on a couple of tracks. A great album for the uncynical.

I have all of First Aid Kit’s albums. Olivia and I saw them in Texas and when I worked at Pet Sounds in Stockholm they came and played on RSD. It was a thrill to stand right next to them as they sang their magnificent harmonies – beautiful. This is their first album Drunken Trees (2008), still developing, but a promise of things to come. I can only recommend everything they do.

Then there’s U2 and Songs Of Innocence (2014). I try and try and sometimes succeed in liking some of the songs on later U2 albums. On this one especially Every Breaking Wave, but it sounds a little lacklustre in the energy department to me. Not that energy is what I need from U2, what I need from U2 is the passion that the none Bono lovers don’t like. I never thought you could fault him on effort. The Edge, samey, I don’t know, a certain blandness going on, fine for pottering, but even Morrissey does current affairs better than Bono these days and Coldplay sound a little edgier. I blame Danger Mouse. I feel the same way about his album with Karen O – Lux Prima. Still, I will try again.

The three girls in boygenius (2018) are Phoebe Bridgers, Julien Baker and Lucy Dacus. I have their collaboration EP on vinyl, but my stereo isn’t set up to play 45RPM, this is when Spotify comes in handy. Check it out. But tonight I was playing the solo albums by Phoebe, Stranger In The Alps (2017), and Julien, Sprained Ankle (2015). I’m particularly fond of Phoebe at the moment, really like this album. I’ve had it for a while, played it quite often, Julien Baker I’ve only heard once and that was tonight. So more listens needed. Highly recommended US singer-songwriters. Lucy Dacus also has a cool album, Historian, from 2018.

So who is Israel Nash? I’m not sure really. He’s also been called Israel Nash Gripka. This album Lifted (2018) is kind of Hippie Lush. Melodic, well produced, if he was already famous people would really like this album, ha ha. Maybe he is very successful in America, I don’t know. Other records I have heard by him sounded very Neil Young like, more simple, less produced. I have Barn Doors And Concrete Floors from 2011. You’re just going to have to press random play on your music service to hear him, to see if you like him, but I recommend you do.

Then there’s Margaret Glaspy, singer and electric guitarist. I’m not sure why she’s not more popular, perhaps she’s just too new. But like Israel Nash, perhaps she is popular, I really wouldn’t know from here. This album is Emotions And Math and is from 2016. I really like it. Her new album Devotion (2020) I’m yet to explore. On a sad note each of her albums on vinyl are nearly £30 each, ridiculous, and why?

Moving right on to vinyl. I bought the last And Also The Trees album, Born Into The Waves (2016), direct from the band. Nice note back from guitarist Justin Jones. Really good, moody, dark, atmospheric, as all their albums are. Always interesting lyrics from brother Simon Huw Jones and Justin’s effected guitar creates perfect moodscapes as a background to the evocative words and singing.

Next was the new Rustin Man album, Clockdust (2020). You have to like his singing but I do. It’s quite unusual, moody, intriguing, sometimes a bit Robert Wyatt. I’ve only played it once so far, but I liked it immediately.

Next came Jenny Lee Lindberg’s Right On (2015). She is the bass player in Warpaint who I love and like her band mate, guitarist Theresa Wayman, has released her own album. You can tell they are in the same band, they tap into something, it’s hard to put your finger on it, but I really like the mood and the sounds.

Last but not least Vanishing Twin’s odd record. I’ll add a quote from Wikipedia as to what they sound like: “Their sound has been compared to the band Stereolab and is described as Brazilian psych-jazz as well as a psychedelic, experimental pop ensemble”. Last thought – Do the very rich have record collections?

Today’s Song Of The Day is You Can Dream by The Churchhill Garden, featuring us and many others in the video. The song is featured on a compilation called “Songs from Quarantine”, available exclusively on Bandcamp. 100% of profits will be donated to the World Health Organization for Covid-19 relief efforts.

 

We Can Dream

I miss you
I miss everything
About the way it used to be
Before life in quarantine

Before isolation
Feeling so alone
Scared inside our homes

But I still have my memories
This can’t take that from me
We can dream
We can dream
Dream…about how we hope we’ll be
After life in quarantine

No more isolation
Feeling so alone
Scared inside our homes

I still miss you
I miss everything
We can dream
We can dream

(Andy Jossi / Krissy Vanderwoude)