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Dare wasn’t coming into the studio today till after 4PM so Olivia and I made our joyous pilgrimage to the recycling and the supermarket which although necessary is really just an excuse to go and be with the sea. In fact feeding off the sea air might be healthier than anything we buy. All that oxygen and that salty breeze are just a delight. I read somewhere (unsubstantiated) that as well as breathing all that beautiful fresh air in, you might want to start by breathing out all the old air that’s sitting in the secret corners of your lungs. (Yes, Unsubstantiated and Secret Corners are ex band songs.) Olivia’s eyes started to water in the wind, but I just couldn’t drag myself away, this mesmerising toing and froing of the waves, the purity of the air, the expanse of the bay, the moving clouds and the sun disappearing and sporadically reappearing, is the antidote to the lockdown.

On the way back up to the studio I decided to take some pictures of the hairdresser’s menu. One of the dishes was “Skin Fade”. I said to Olivia, “What is skin fade?”. Just then our friend and resident Reggae expert, DJ and professional Liverpudlian, Indian Billy came by and between Olivia and him, they explained what it was. Only now have I really understood – it’s footballer’s haircut. Billy and I briefly exchanged memories of being chased around Liverpool by ‘skinheads’, Billy putting up with a lot more than me. I left the scary hairdresser’s thinking it’s only people with short hair that have their hair shortened.

In the park the exotic plants are bravely coming out despite the lockdown. I must find out what some of them are called and write something about this place as plants grow here that don’t grow in the rest of England (it’s a milder climate down here), there’s even bamboo! Walking back through the park Billy and his friend were sitting on one of the benches taking in the beauty of it all. We became aware of the birdsong all around us. I asked does anybody actually know which birds sing what songs? Billy said there’s an app! Of course there is.

Just out of the park we met Steve, the sound engineer from the Acorn Theatre opposite the studio and archive. He’s obviously had nothing to do for the last month with all the concerts postponed. Dare saw us on his way to the studio and he came and joined in the conversation. It was then that I noticed we were all standing farther apart than we normally do. I’d noticed earlier that although couples must touch, that you don’t see any public human contact (even from the couples). Is the handshake dead? The continental cheek kiss, the hug? Can people really be scared of touching their own partners?

In the studio it was straight into guitar ideas with Space Summit. What does this track need? We spent a good hour experimenting with the wah-wah pedal, different guitars, Jazzmaster, Strat, Les Paul, different amps, AC30, JC120. It was all a bit too funky for the song, a bit too “Shaft”. We spent a couple of hours working on the track till I had a sesh with Marc in Annapolis. Did I read there were anti-lockdown protests there and in other places where there are Democrat governors blaming them for doing what the government (with medical advice) has been telling everyone to do and whilst Republican governors are also enforcing lockdowns? Worst of all during these protests, they bring their guns – you know that essential business that must stay open through it all, but you must close the bookshops, I mean they are always so packed with people. All I know is that Stockholm is not in lockdown and that’s where my eyes are focussed for obvious reasons.

After the Marc sesh, dinner, an episode of Star Trek, interestingly it was the episode about ‘Kodos’ who had executed 4,000 people on a colony when they ran out of food to save another 4,000 from starvation. The moral dilemma of it all – the food arrived earlier than expected, just after he held the execution, and by the way the executed were chosen by him. I read that one of the Republican governors stated that it’s best for the vulnerable to die and save the American lifestyle. Also there’s the potential scenario that although the lockdown might slow down the virus and the hospitals will be able to cope more easily with the lockdown in force, that ultimately the virus will infect beyond the easing of the lockdown anyway and all we’ll have is even more death, but with a shattered economy. This potential scenario doesn’t make the most vulnerable and the sick and their families want to be sacrificed now for the so-called greater good. Everyone needs help, everyone wants to live. Then there’s the people out there that think that the whole thing is a great big lie. My view on all this is that hopefully at some point in the future we will all be able to see what should have happened, who was right, who was wrong and how can we avoid it all happening again.

Music today was a journey back to obscure bands that all the collectors know and the public at large don’t. May Blitz s/t and The 2nd Of May were released on Vertigo in 1970 and 1971. They were not successful and consequently the band broke up. The singer and guitarist James Black and the bass player Reid Hudson were both Canadian and returned to Canada. I haven’t been able to trace what happened to them next. The drummer Tony Newman went on to play with Three Man Army and was recruited to play on David Bowie’s Diamond Dogs. He continued to play with Bowie live and also appears on David Live, released in 1974, Newman has quite a resumé. May Blitz are a mixture of early Progressive and Blues Rock. What I like the most about music like this is all the instrumental passages, the jamming. I listen for amazing songs in other music. I only have reissues of most of this type of album, in the case of May Blitz originals sell for around the £500 mark.

Staying in the same approximate universe, I listened to Three Man Army’s three seventies released albums. The instrumental passages are still there but it’s more song orientated. The Gurvitz Brothers Adrian and Paul, formed the band after Gun split up in 1970. You might remember Gun’s 1968 hit, Race With The Devil. Three Man Army’s last seventies album was unreleased till 2005. Prior to Three Man Army, Paul Gurvitz joined Parrish & Gurvitz for one album produced by George Martin and Adrian, after starting work on the first Three Man Army album originally planned as a solo album, joined Buddy Miles’ band before the brothers found themselves playing with Ginger Baker for three albums in Baker Gurvitz Army and then two albums with The Graeme Edge band (Moody Blues drummer). Then, and although it seems like a lot of people don’t actually know who the prolific Adrian Gurvitz is, his huge long list of successes is for you to research yourself should you wish to.

Song Of The Day today is the riffy Let Me Tell You A Secret from Noctorum’s Offer The Light:

 

Let Me Tell You A Secret

The Venus de Milo
The Shroud of Turin
The Mona Lisa
Ho Chi Minh

Leonardo da Vinci
The Eiffel Tower
The Sahara Desert
General Eisenhower

All this information
Too many things to know
It’s like dehydration
And so nothing grows

Coca Cola
Calvin Klein
Starbucks and Nike
ICI
You turn on the TV
Too many things on show
Too much information
Ooh too much food to grow

Let me tell you a secret
Come and sit close
I’m as crazy as you are
Living with these ghosts

And so we’re in it together
With our big ideas
Changing the system
In these coming years

But it’s like climbing a mountain
Without any clothes
All this running in circles
You gotta keep on your toes

Well let me tell you a secret
Come and sit close
If it’s the last thing I do here
Put an end to these jokes

Let me tell you a secret
Come and sit close
Well I’m as crazy as you are
Living with these ghosts

Well let me tell you a secret
Come and sit close
If it’s the last thing I do here
Put an end to these jokes

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

Today in the strange and spooky mists of antiquity, Penzance opened a doorway to the past and let us see some wonderful things from the forties, the fifties and the seventies. But first we went up to Dare’s house today and took some pictures out of his moody bathroom window that shows the growing part of Penzance that was built in the 19th and 20th century. The supernatural surprises began on the walk back down the hill to the archive. There, in the bay, a ghost ship, a triple masted schooner anchored in the middle of the bay. One wondered whether the crew were spectres, drowned sailors returning to the location and the day of their sinking. Although I’d love to continue this Gothic fantasy the truth of the matter is that the ship, the Pelican Of London, was built in 1946, originally an Arctic trawler and renovated with added masts later. According to the net, the ship is on route to Sharpness further up the English West coast in Gloucestershire, anchoring in Mount’s Bay one presumes because of the stormy weather.

Further down the hill, glorious in its simplicity we experienced the orange splendour of a 1975 Dutch DAF 46. Strange little 850cc cars, that you don’t see much anymore. The car is famous for its Variomatic gearbox which allows the car to drive forwards and backwards at equal speed, making the car unbeatable in the former Dutch Annual Driving Backward Car Championships. Truth is most certainly stranger than fiction. Staying on cars, driving down the promenade today was a late fifties Standard 10 which I managed to get a snap of as it drove by. You very rarely see this car anymore, Standard stopped production under that name in England in 1963. The past seemed to follow us everywhere today as we had leftovers for dinner.

Out in the bay in the mist you could see the outline of St. Michael’s Mount. It really felt that we were in another age with fewer people on the streets, a cold wind, a low sky about to rain and hazy images on the horizon. The coming darkness was threatening, it made you want to get inside and lock the doors, so we did just that and watched The Menagerie, the double episode of Star Trek based on the pilot episode The Cage (cleverly using the old footage). There’s nothing like a little original Star Trek to warm your soul.

It was another day off from the studio today, a catch up day that never seems to happen. Emails to answer, comments and questions on the pages. I really need to figure out how to make the most of the time that I get. Olivia too is working on something all the time. I guess the main problem is that I’m too interested in too many things! Just the archive can keep me busy all day everyday. So if you ever send me a note and you don’t hear back I just didn’t get to it. The inbox is always so full, but I do try.

Music today has been interesting voices day. Starting with Lene Lovich who had hits in the New Wave seventies with more than one song, but mostly she is remembered for Lucky Number. She actually grew up in Detroit, but moved to England when she was 13 where she met her partner and co-writer Les Chappell. She was signed to Stiff Records and made Stateless in 1978 and then Flex in 1979 (CDs have extra tracks). No Man’s Land appeared in 1982 as she ended her relationship with Stiff. It was seven years until the independently released March (1989) on Pathfinder Records. It seems quite hard to find (I have it). But it was another 16 years till Shadows And Dust came out in 2005 and it’s now another 15 years since. Dear Lene, please make another record.

In honour of DAF, I quickly went backwards to Fox, the brainchild of Brill Building songwriter Kenny Young. He most famously co-wrote Under The Boardwalk as well as songs for Herman’s Hermits, The Searchers and more. He also discovered and wrote Come Back And Shake Me for Clodagh Rogers. His secret weapon in the seventies was Noosha Fox, real name, Susan Traynor, an Australian with an unusual voice allegedly an inspiration for Kate Bush. Only You Can and Imagine Me Imagine You were both hits from the debut album, but success eluded them completely on the second album as Kenny Young decided he wanted to sing some of his own songs, plus drummer Jim Frank sang two songs, why? It was like a Kate Bush album where five of the songs are sung by someone else. But they came storming back with their third album Blue Hotel where Noosha sang all the songs (they learned) including their most famous song, S-S-S-Single Bed in 1976, the album coming out in 1977. Then what the hell happened? Noosha had a brief low key solo career and then disappeared. Kenny Young went on to form Yellow Dog and had a hit with Just One More Night. Guitarist Herbie Armstrong went on to work with Van Morrison, keyboard player Pete Solley joined Procol Harum. But Noosha, where are you?

Song Of The Day today is in honour of artists that have hits and then don’t make any more records. Noctorum’s catchy Pop tune Stop Cryin’ Your Eyes Out isn’t exactly about that, in fact it’s not about that at all. But perhaps once in a parallel universe it could have been a hit for an artist that disappeared.

 

Stop Cryin’ Your Eyes Out

At last my relief
Now I’ve subscribed to this peace
Turn all the lights out but please
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

My skin has gone cold
Now that everything’s been sold
All of the secrets been told
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

Send me away with a wave and a tear
But now you don’t need to be scared of being near
How do you feel now I’m never coming back
All dressed in black

Humility is strong
When your faith lasts so long
But if I did nothing wrong
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

And as I disappear from view
All that’s left of me is you
And if there’s nothing you can do
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

You can lean on the glass leave a mark from your cheek
But you’ll lose all sense of who I was in a week
I’ll be a memory before the flowers die
So let’s say goodbye

On this last farewell
There is no-one left to tell
And all has ended well
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

And with everything you get
There isn’t time for your regret
So light up another cigarette
Stop cryin’ your eyes out
Stop
Stop cryin’ your eyes out
Stop
Stop cryin’ your eyes out

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

I looked out of the window today and the blue sky had gone, the sun had gone and the grey clouds were back. But I suppose that’s April, that’s the uncertainty of spring, the promise of summer coming, but not quite realized. Dare had a day off from the studio today as I had three session with Kevin in Atlanta, Daniel in Arkansas (I guess near Little Rock) and Brian in Florida (I guess Orlando area). There’s one thing to be said about me being in lockdown, that is I still get to communicate with people all over the world. Skype has made the world so small and I wonder how many people use it to communicate not just with their friends and relatives in other countries but with people in the same town. I went up to the parcel office today to pick up a couple of packages and Olivia went to the post office to send an In Deep Music Archive tote bag and a CD to America. We are hanging in a small town (20,000 people) with lots of familiar local faces. Olivia knows the woman in the post office by name, the guy in the parcel office doesn’t ask me for ID anymore because he knows I’m who I say I am! Ha ha! The other day I was walking in the street and Amy from Rowe’s bakers saw me and said hello. “We owe you five pasties” she said (I usually pay for a week on Monday but they were closed by Tuesday). I realized that I miss that daily interaction with the ladies in Rowe’s and dropping in at the charity shops and seeing if I can find a CD for the archive and chatting with the staff. So for all those people in lockdown whose lives are social, I suggest if you don’t have it already, get Skype. Having that interaction with the outside world will be a welcome relief from Netflix.

Over dinner tonight, we watched Netflix. The Frankenstein Chronicles with Sean Bean, Episode 1. I’d seen it before but wanted Olivia to see it so we could watch the series together. How do they make these shows? The sets, the extras, the attention to detail. Victorian England never looked so real. I’ve always liked seeing all kinds of films from world cinema and old classics to the occasional blockbuster, but I never felt the urge to act. What a calling that is, how do they do it? Brilliantly portraying some complex character whilst surrounded by a bunch of technicians. How do they get into character, transport themselves a hundred years into the past or two hundred years into the future and make it all seem real. How do stage actors in Shakespearean plays remember all their lines? Actors are so impressive, their skills and their dedication to roles and their performances. I remember being in a play at primary school, I must have been 9 or 10. I remember wearing fake whiskers and being dressed as a doctor or a professor? A girl in our class, Diane Vickers (I can’t believe I remember her name), played a mechanical doll called Olympia. I have a certain uneasy feeling about it, ha ha, like what am I doing up here on this stage? Or was there even a stage? In the back of my mind I remember thinking that I couldn’t wait for it to stop.

The other day, the bumblebee rescue day, we walked past the boating pool which was probably once a hot spot for young kids and their parents sailing toy boats. It seems like people don’t do that anymore, at least around here. Directly across the road is the skateboard park. I can’t imagine the boat pool drawing the attention of the skateboarders, I can’t imagine that the skateboarders ever knew that sailing toy boats was ever a thing. So despite the lack of toy boats of any description there was instead a beautiful swan. Its long poetic neck ducking into the water, disappearing for a moment and rising with the water falling away. So dignified but also scary, having been attacked once by a goose I wouldn’t want to be on the wrong side of an angry swan. It was until the 1980s that killing swans was outlawed and allegedly the queen owns them all. Queen Elizabeth I had a different idea about swans and ate them as part of her royal privilege.

Music today has been a band you might not know, Bodast. It featured Steve Howe who later joined Yes and as of today has his own version of Yes with Alan White, Geoff Downes and Billy Sherwood who have all been in different incarnations of the band and with Jon Davison on vocals. They had to find a vocalist whose voice was similar to the distinctive voice of Jon Anderson. Journey did the same thing, substituting Steve Perry with a sound-alike, Arnel Pineda from the Philippines. The other version has Jon Anderson, Rick Wakeman and Trevor Rabin with a new bass player and drummer. What a strange situation it is. I saw Yes with Jon Anderson at Night Of The Prog a couple of years ago, Jon Anderson’s voice was beautiful and pure, he really sounded so good. Rick Wakeman’s cape was a little over the top and unnecessary, obvious. But is this how it is? They have to be like what people expect them to be, including the cape? When Steve Howe recruited Jon Davison he couldn’t get any singer, he had to get a singer like Jon Anderson. It didn’t use to be that way. When David Coverdale and Glenn Hughes replaced Ian Gillan in Deep Purple they were hired for their own voices, not his. Even Black Sabbath hired Ronnie James Dio because he was a great singer, not because he sounded like Ozzie. It’s the old problem of the nostalgia act again, the future just isn’t as interesting as the past…Having said all this looking at Nick Mason’s Saucerful Of Secrets’ band with Hawaiian-shirted bass player Guy Pratt doing the duckwalk along to One Of These Days and wearing those whiter than white trainers was all wrong. (Spandau Ballet’s Gary Kemp, guilty.) It looked like an outing for the Ferrari owners club, I guess it was. Close you eyes and musically it was really good, open them and die.

After Bodast I played The Yes Album released on Atlantic records in 1971 and featuring Steve Howe as a new member replacing Peter Banks who would form Flash but still with Tony Kaye on keyboards who would shortly form Badger, his place taken by the inimitable and the flamboyantly dressed Rick Wakeman. It seems that Steve Howe was instrumental in replacing Kaye and talking of instrumentals, I learned tonight that the chord sequence from Würm (the last section of Starship Trooper) originally came from a Bodast song, Nether Street. You can hear it on the Bodast album that was finally released in 1981. To think the band was formed in 1968 and it took this long to release their record. The singer was Clive Skinner, aka Clive Maldoon, he sadly died in 1978 and never knew it finally came out. The first major band I saw was Uriah Heep and Clive Maldoon was the support. I saw Yes once in Sydney with Anderson, Wakeman, Howe, Squire and White at the entertainment centre (now gone apparently). That same week Roger Dean had a gallery exhibition that I went to. It was in the same street as the studio we were recording in. There I met Dean himself and Chris Squire for one of three times, but that’s another story.

I started and finished the night with some American Bluesy influenced albums, the first Pacific Gas And Electric (1969) from LA with Charlie Allen on vocals. He was the drummer, but when they realized he was the band’s best singer they got another drummer and he became the front man.

Last was The Blues Project’s second album Projections (1966) featuring Al Kooper who would leave after the album’s release to form Blood, Sweat & Tears. Either side of Projections the band released a live album. It seems unusual for a band to have two live and one studio album in their first three releases (including the debut), but then this was the sixties, anything was possible. Apparently the band never saw the album cover or heard the mix before it was released. That was the power of the labels in those days.

Today’s song really has to be Swan from Hanging Out In Heaven (2000). I still haven’t managed to get myself a copy of the vinyl re-release, must do that.

 

Swan

If you sway
In the breeze of moving reeds
Swim away
Then fly out in the universe
With grace

Softly down
You lose a feather from your snow
There’s no sound
Just whispers from the waters
You have found

Wings of silk
Curves of beauty to behold
Face of milk
Oh my swan
The gift of you unfolds

White opaque
Fabled goddess
Drifts and dreams
In your wake
Astounded by the wonders
That you make

You glide by
I stay loyal to my queen
Don’t have to try
Swans they stay together
All their lives

Raise your head
Stroke your neck
That’s soft and long
Have I said
Oh my swan
The gift of you I want

Wings of silk
Curves of beauty to behold
Face of milk
Oh my swan
The gift of you unfolds

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

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)