So now we’re just coming up to the end of the Easter break and, it’s a curious thing, but I’m kinda looking forward to going back. College ended in an odd way. I’m not going to go into in here because, well this is because. Sometime when writing this Blog thing it’s easy to forget that it’s out there in the stratosphere and really it’s sometimes it’s probably best not to put out there because – and here’s the odd thing – people might read it. Yesterday I was speaking to My Mate Steve (OK - we were e-mailing each other: no one actually speaks anymore) and he said “Loving your blog” and it caught me cold. He read it? Why?? And when? I don’t know. When do people get time to do things like read Blogs? It’s not like there’s not enough in life to be getting on with.
Anyway, I was thinking. The older we get, the smaller our worlds get. It’s like going to the cinema on my own, a treat that was a staple of my youth but one of those things (like... just about every other selfish pleasure) that had to move out to accommodate life. You'd have thought The Lord would have foreseen such things and made our lives bigger as we went on. You start off with 24 hours for yourself, but then you're expected to take on board a wife, kids, a job, the dogs, the cats, the kids' friends, the friends’ kids, a mortgage, the garden, a new kitchen – all in that same 24 hours. Who would it hurt if we were given, say, an additional three hours a day with each extra child? OK, so there’d be a bit of re-structuring to do, but I’d be a fantastic parent, do all sorts of things with the kids. I’d go to that evening life drawing class in Bond Street. I would be that person. I wonder if Brighton Progressive Synagogue's got a Suggestion Box? Maybe one day I'll find out. If I ever go there. If I ever get the time.
Anyway, it made me think again about what I write here - the consequence of which is that I’m not going to write anything about college because it might assume a level of over-familiarity that is inappropriate.
But it was a funny old last week. I put on a “disco” – a funny old word, but tell me a better one – for the students. Took in the Laughton Lodge PA, did as much as I could do. Organised a kind of Stick It On evening. Was the impetus for the whole thing. And for what? Frankly by the time it came to it, I’d rather have stayed at home and watched paint dry, but a commitment is a commitment. Hey, they’re only kids.
So anyway. I’ve got this idea. I’m going to create a journalist character called Frank Lee and Frank’s going to be an argumentative, polemic kind of guy. I’ll do a column and I’m going to call it Frank Lee Speaking. You can go mad sitting in a room all day by yourself.
Poppy
Saturday 29 March 2008
Friday 28 March 2008
Poppy's Story
Maybe this is her story. She lived in a happy family somewhere in Ireland, a happy family dog who lived with a mummy, a daddy and maybe a couple of kids. She’d sit by the fire as the kids played and watched Tracey Beaker and she was happy. Then, one day, she went out for a run and got distracted by something. What? I don’t know. But something caught her eye and she was off. She ran and ran and somehow – why? I don’t know – she got lost. She panicked and started running but the more she ran, the more she got lost and then she just ran. Blindly, she just ran. The kids at home were crying. Their parents were out looking. It got dark. No one knew where any of the others were but they were all running, all looking, all losing their way. Then… she ran across a road. It was a quiet country road, no lights, just dark. As she ran across the road, a car came round the corner. Bang! It hit her, caught the back of her and hit her back leg. It flipped her round and she fell on the side of the road, felt dizzy and… passed out.
The next day she was found, battered, beaten and bruised – and very nearly finished – by a local dog walker. She was miles from where she’d started and the walker didn’t recognise her. But he was a kindly soul and took her in. He picked her up gently and put her in his Land Rover. And took her to the police station.
The police didn’t know what to do with her. This being Ireland there was no RSPCA, no animal rescue organisation – they don’t go for that sort of thing there. There’s only local people who do nice things. So the police got in touch with this local person who did nice things and, to cut a long story short, he came to the police station, collected her and took her to a contact he had at the RSPCA in Brighton – a long way from home.
So that’s where she ended up – the RSPCA in Brighton. She came round and found she couldn’t move her back leg. She looked around, hoping to see her kids, her mummy and daddy and instead saw only a cage. And she was in it. What had happened?
“Her operation is tomorrow” she heard a woman called Jenny say.
What was that all about?
Wednesday 5 March 2008
The iPack - Desert Island Discs
DESERT ISLAND DISCS
I always wanted to do Desert Island Discs. Don't know if they often ask slack bastard lecturers on it though - and I dare say there'd be a queue if they did.
This is the strict 'ten songs in the key of life' format. There are a few crossovers with the "Wake" selection, but so what>
XJ
Nathan Jones - The Supremes
The first record I ever bought. Immigration – West Indian immigration unlike immigrants like us who weren’t immigrants at all what are you suggesting? – was still something that had yet to hit. Sure, there were black people around but black popular culture was still relatively underground. Now, it is the universal language of pop, has been for years, but back then, it was still small scale.
There was a shop on Stamford Hill Broadway, a record shop called Rhythm and Blues, it was like something out of Absolute Beginners. In between the local Woolworths and (naturally) the salt beef bar, Rhythm and Blues was really from somewhere else. I can’t remember what made me first go in there but I remember what it was like: full of smoke, full of black geezers in hats – pork pie hats. God knows where they came from. Never saw them outside the shop. Anyway, you opened the door and, really, it was like walking into another world and the music, the music was intoxicating. It was probably ska – no idea back then - but it sounded fantastic. I started going in there Saturday mornings, never talking to anyone, just lurking around.
Eventually I bought a record – this one. It’s a great tune, still thrills and I kinda like the fact that this is the first record I bought.
The first record I bought for someone else was “The Pushbike Song” by The Mixtures. It was for Jane Fisher. I gave her the record and then asked her out.
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
Perfect. (see "Wake" write up for the words)
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses
The record that made me realise I’d lost touch with something. I was standing in the kitchen with Oaksie in the flat we’d bought in Harlesden, just chatting. He’d probably just come back from the bookies or something. We were just hanging out and this came on the telly and, again, it was like out of nowhere. I knew nothing of Madchester, Spike Island or anything. Knew nothing (outside of what the newspapers had told me) about acid house or rave culture. And suddenly I felt very, very old. I had a good job at The Independent, a good stereo, car, a self-cleaning oven, the whole deal. I could have stayed. If I’d have stayed I’d probably be quite successful in newspaperland. Jim, Tris, Giles did… why not? But I don’t know. I heard this song and somehow just knew that there were still adventures to be had. And so I gave my notice in and turned upside down. That it sounds so modern and exactly the same as Can (Soon Over Babaluma era) just makes me smile in that “I knew I was right” way.
Adagio - Samuel Barber
We got married to this. Anything else you need to know?
Into My Arms - Nick Cave
I think if I wrote this… I’d have to kill myself. How could I ever do anything better? Everything would be an anticlimax. It is completely lovely, completely meltingly beautiful.
“I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do,
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him,
Not to intervene when it came to you,
Not to touch a hair on your head,
To leave you as you are,
And if He felt He had to direct you,
Then direct you into my arms”
Dry The Rain - The Beta Band
Again, a lovely perfect song. It’s not a surprise that the bloke who wrote this went mad afterwards. It’s got that air of fragility, of fractured, shuffling almost-ness. And it reminds me of course of Gill and the early days.
Lost In Music - Sister Sledge
The Laughton era. I’d always fancied doing a bit of the DJ thing and Laughton Lodge gave me the opportunity to do that. For some strange reason when I appeared here the word got around that I was a wires and sound man. I mean, sounds I like but having a few CDs is a long way from being a sound engineer. But that’s what I became. I bought the equipment, controlled the sound desk at shows, kinda owned that area. One of the happy by-products was that I also became the DJ. They’d never really had anyone here before willing to take on this role and I didn’t have to be asked twice. Of course, it was more Michael Jackson than John Digweed but what do you expect from a bunch of large-lobed middle class middle aged types?
The music that did prove irresistible for everyone was Chic (in all its forms). Whatever Rodgers and Edwards did, it was curiously magical and just has that knack of making people happy. And it’s lovely to see.
Shhh/Peaceful - Miles Davis
If there was a fire and I had just enough time to grab one record, it would be In A Silent Way (the six CD Complete Sessions, of course, because why not?) My favourite Miles group doing what they do in the most sublime way. No one dominates, no one bullies anyone else. It’s not ground breaking in that “Blimey, that’s fantastic. Is it finished yet?” way. McLaughlin’s playing is sublime.
6 – Labradford
A song about love and intimacy, something to drift off to that’s warm and soulful and full of heart. Lie in the dark and listen to this: it could go on forever and it still wouldn’t seem too long. I know nothing of Labradford except that they're Canadian and they curate something called The Festival Of Drifting - which seems about right.
A book? I don’t know. There are so many books I haven’t read that I want to read… it seems churlish to choose.
Maybe The Complete Works of Philip Roth (and if such a thing doesn’t exist… well, it should).
I always wanted to do Desert Island Discs. Don't know if they often ask slack bastard lecturers on it though - and I dare say there'd be a queue if they did.
This is the strict 'ten songs in the key of life' format. There are a few crossovers with the "Wake" selection, but so what>
XJ
Nathan Jones - The Supremes
The first record I ever bought. Immigration – West Indian immigration unlike immigrants like us who weren’t immigrants at all what are you suggesting? – was still something that had yet to hit. Sure, there were black people around but black popular culture was still relatively underground. Now, it is the universal language of pop, has been for years, but back then, it was still small scale.
There was a shop on Stamford Hill Broadway, a record shop called Rhythm and Blues, it was like something out of Absolute Beginners. In between the local Woolworths and (naturally) the salt beef bar, Rhythm and Blues was really from somewhere else. I can’t remember what made me first go in there but I remember what it was like: full of smoke, full of black geezers in hats – pork pie hats. God knows where they came from. Never saw them outside the shop. Anyway, you opened the door and, really, it was like walking into another world and the music, the music was intoxicating. It was probably ska – no idea back then - but it sounded fantastic. I started going in there Saturday mornings, never talking to anyone, just lurking around.
Eventually I bought a record – this one. It’s a great tune, still thrills and I kinda like the fact that this is the first record I bought.
The first record I bought for someone else was “The Pushbike Song” by The Mixtures. It was for Jane Fisher. I gave her the record and then asked her out.
Virginia Plain - Roxy Music
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown - Augustus Pablo
Perfect. (see "Wake" write up for the words)
Fools Gold - The Stone Roses
The record that made me realise I’d lost touch with something. I was standing in the kitchen with Oaksie in the flat we’d bought in Harlesden, just chatting. He’d probably just come back from the bookies or something. We were just hanging out and this came on the telly and, again, it was like out of nowhere. I knew nothing of Madchester, Spike Island or anything. Knew nothing (outside of what the newspapers had told me) about acid house or rave culture. And suddenly I felt very, very old. I had a good job at The Independent, a good stereo, car, a self-cleaning oven, the whole deal. I could have stayed. If I’d have stayed I’d probably be quite successful in newspaperland. Jim, Tris, Giles did… why not? But I don’t know. I heard this song and somehow just knew that there were still adventures to be had. And so I gave my notice in and turned upside down. That it sounds so modern and exactly the same as Can (Soon Over Babaluma era) just makes me smile in that “I knew I was right” way.
Adagio - Samuel Barber
We got married to this. Anything else you need to know?
Into My Arms - Nick Cave
I think if I wrote this… I’d have to kill myself. How could I ever do anything better? Everything would be an anticlimax. It is completely lovely, completely meltingly beautiful.
“I don't believe in an interventionist God,
But I know, darling, that you do,
But if I did I would kneel down and ask Him,
Not to intervene when it came to you,
Not to touch a hair on your head,
To leave you as you are,
And if He felt He had to direct you,
Then direct you into my arms”
Dry The Rain - The Beta Band
Again, a lovely perfect song. It’s not a surprise that the bloke who wrote this went mad afterwards. It’s got that air of fragility, of fractured, shuffling almost-ness. And it reminds me of course of Gill and the early days.
Lost In Music - Sister Sledge
The Laughton era. I’d always fancied doing a bit of the DJ thing and Laughton Lodge gave me the opportunity to do that. For some strange reason when I appeared here the word got around that I was a wires and sound man. I mean, sounds I like but having a few CDs is a long way from being a sound engineer. But that’s what I became. I bought the equipment, controlled the sound desk at shows, kinda owned that area. One of the happy by-products was that I also became the DJ. They’d never really had anyone here before willing to take on this role and I didn’t have to be asked twice. Of course, it was more Michael Jackson than John Digweed but what do you expect from a bunch of large-lobed middle class middle aged types?
The music that did prove irresistible for everyone was Chic (in all its forms). Whatever Rodgers and Edwards did, it was curiously magical and just has that knack of making people happy. And it’s lovely to see.
Shhh/Peaceful - Miles Davis
If there was a fire and I had just enough time to grab one record, it would be In A Silent Way (the six CD Complete Sessions, of course, because why not?) My favourite Miles group doing what they do in the most sublime way. No one dominates, no one bullies anyone else. It’s not ground breaking in that “Blimey, that’s fantastic. Is it finished yet?” way. McLaughlin’s playing is sublime.
6 – Labradford
A song about love and intimacy, something to drift off to that’s warm and soulful and full of heart. Lie in the dark and listen to this: it could go on forever and it still wouldn’t seem too long. I know nothing of Labradford except that they're Canadian and they curate something called The Festival Of Drifting - which seems about right.
A book? I don’t know. There are so many books I haven’t read that I want to read… it seems churlish to choose.
Maybe The Complete Works of Philip Roth (and if such a thing doesn’t exist… well, it should).
Saturday 1 March 2008
The iPack - Songs For My Wake
The iPack is, as you know, a Boy's Own Thing. A group of us - there were six but now there are four - and each month one of us bequeaths a title. We all go then go off a interpret a CD that, to us, reflects that title. And, if we like, we write a little explanation. And then maybe post them on our Blogs. So...
SONGS FOR MY WAKE – SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE
Songs For My Wake – a trip through a life tragically cut short by that freak accident involving a cheese grater, a Roman Candle and a small black and white cat called Bonnie.
VIRGINIA PLAIN - ROXY MUSIC
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN - AUGUSTUS PABLO
So there was a bloke at school called something like Anthony Skolopozinsky. Something like that. Everyone called him Scollop. He was OK, a bit of an oddball, but OK. I can’t remember how or why, but I went to his flat. A dull council block in Hackney. His room though… boxes and boxes of reggae 12”s. I wish I could remember the story of how this 13-year-old Jewish boy from a dull council block in Hackney turned from a bit of an oddball to Jah Scollop but… I spent the day there being educated. And went back. I think that was the first time I heard this tune. Immediately I recognised it for what it was: the finest tune ever recorded. Don’t ask why or nothing. It just is.
FREEDOM IS FRIGHTENING – STOMU YAMASH’TA -
This boy called Geoffrey Myers joined school. He was a bit different. I can’t remember exactly why, but he was odd. Got thrown out of school not long after he arrived. I can’t remember exactly why. He was blonde – and there weren’t many blonde kids at school (it’s not a popular Jew thing) so… maybe that was it. Anyway. I hooked up with Geoffrey Myers and he took me to the Roundhouse. I’d never been before. I remember walking in and it was like a wonderland. There was this long-haired bloke who’d proclaimed himself Jesus and put on sandwich boards telling us all that we were saved. Strange characters. Weird scenes inside the goldmine as someone else once said. We went upstairs and sat down with the hard core hippies, smoked their dope, felt sick. I remember seeing all sort of bands during this period – Curved Air, Alex Harvey, the mind-blowing Hawkwind, but the thing that stands out was Stomu Yamash’ta’s Red Buddha Theatre. A theatrical troupe prancing around in a traditional manner and behind them this mad percussion-based band. It’s art, innit.
SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE - MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
There was a period in the early to mid Seventies where it all went a bit prog. Look, I’m a middle class white boy: it happens. I saw Yes doing Topographic Oceans, Genesis doing Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and all manner of nonsense. The straw snapped when I was taken to see ELP at Wembley and saw nothing except one of the drummer’s arms. Enough. So I holed up and took refuge in what was called jazz fusion. Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Miles. I had a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnus. Live, it was head-spinning. Mad and very funny. A famous music writer once wrote “Why judge a guitar solo by the speed with which it is played? You wouldn’t judge a novel by the speed with which it is written”. I couldn’t disagree more. The Mahavishnus. Practically perfect in every way.
MOONSHAKE - CAN
So the mid-Seventies. There was the art pop stuff, but that had gone off when Eno left Roxy (Sorry Martino – but it’s true). There was the Roundhouse hippie thing and the Scollop inspired reggae. And there was what was called KrautRock. Can were mesmeric (see A Song For Europe compilation) throwing rhythmic shapes around like aural graffiti, hitting a groove and rocking it, trance-style. One of these compilations I’ll sneak on something from Soon Over Babaluma. Can even had a hit single.
MASCULINE GENDER - RANKING TREVOR
Much of the Seventies was characterised by sitting in my room and listening to John Peel. As Tom Jones once said, it’s not unusual. You heard all manner of strange stuff there – Ivor Cutler, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and bags of reggae. Ranking Trevor was mid to late Seventies and has always stuck in my head. Maybe the name stood out – Trevor never seemed much of a name for a Rasta dude, but it’s a fantastic tune.
WHAT IN THEWORLD – DAVID BOWIE
Listening to John Peel and getting stoned. “Jeremy. You look dopey” as my mother once said.
ONE CHORD WONDERS - THE ADVERTS
Punk was very funny, and after all that really quite serious mid-Seventies stuff (both musical and life) an astonishing breath of fresh air. I kinda knew it was going to come – I’d seen Patti Smith and The Stranglers at The Roundhouse, but not sadly The Ramones – but still. The thing with punk is that I was close, but not that close. The same time Johnny was doing his audition at Sex… There was a second hand clothes shop on The Kings Road called Eat Your Heart Out which sold very fine old zoot suits a few doors away from Sex, just round the bend. I used to hang out in this shop, happily ignored by everyone in there – they were far cooler than a boy like me – blissfully unaware that about 10 yards away there was a social revolution being hatched. Frankly, I was more interested in whether the jacket had six buttons or four. Similarly the punk band I latched onto was The Adverts - I went to see them Saturday nights at The Nashville – possibly the least cool of all the early punk bands. One question: did the Clash have Gaye Advert?
REPITITION - THE FALL
Was there ever a band like The Fall? No. Never was, never will be. This was the song that convinced me of their greatness. The B-side of their first single. Frankly startling. The Fall were the reason (along with Joy Division and the side-fact that it was the only college in the western hemisphere to offer me a place) that I went to Manchester Poly. How many Fall gigs did I see there? What can I tell you? I got a third. I once dragged Sarah and Catherine to a Fall gig at Manchester University. I don’t think either spoke to me for weeks. Obviously they were so grateful they didn’t know quite what to say. It reminds me of the time I finally got to take out Perry Burns. I was maybe 15. I’d been dancing round her maypole for ages and she finally relented. In time honoured teen boy fashion, I decided to take her to the cinema. (Listen, we’ve all seen the popcorn scene in Diner). Anyway I thought I’d show her how sophisticated I was and took her to see Last Tango In Paris… That went down well. (Which is more than you can say for her…)
DO THE DU - A CERTAIN RATIO
Manchester was supposed to be all about Joy Division and in a way it was. I saw them there more than a few times and, seeing Ian Curtis on stage, it wasn’t a total surprise that he topped himself. But really our band was ACR. They were locals and we got to know them a fair bit. Mick better than me. He played football in the same team as them. They had this club, The Beach Club, which was a house in a street. The lounge was the stage, a bedroom upstairs the bar. We saw U2 at the Beach on their first UK tour, helped them load their gear at the end of the night. ACR were properly one of us. Never did understand why they didn’t hit big.
NEVER UNDERSTAND - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
This kinda summed up my feelings about Eighties music. It largely passed me by. It looked good and everything was seemingly in the right place, but there was no… middle. No soul. All that faux jazz, it left me cold. JAMC were the perfect antidote to all that perfect smooth-edged pop where production values were more important than heart. They had better tunes too, though nobody ever cared about that.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - JOHN COLTRANE
All through this journey, rhythm took precedent over melody. The grooves of Can. The heartbeat of dub. Looking back, I wish I had been more of a disco head – it sounds more fun than anything else. But I wasn’t. I can’t remember a single Eighties band I cared about. The Smiths I only ever cared for after the event. There was the odd rap tune I locked into, but I didn’t dig the posturing. Reggae moved into syrupy lovers and shouty dancehall. So I took refuge in jazz. Jazz had all the ingredients that the Eighties lacked. I was going to pick Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, undeniably the last great acoustic jazz album, but in the end plumped for this. You can’t argue with it. And at a wake… it’d be perfect.
PURE (ENERGY) – GTO
Then I found myself in Tokyo. That’s a story for another CD but consider this. We walked into the Maharajah Palace, and were immediately dubbed ‘The Two Fat Yuppies’. That went down well. I walked into the lounge, a louche parlour where bodies were sprawled all over the place. I asked a young hunk, a Canadian called Bradley, what the story that night was. “We’ll go to Gold and take some acid”. I’d never had any acid. Then again, I’d never been to Gold before. Or Tokyo come to that. So I went. I walked in, and took some acid that Bradley gave me. The whole place was full of dry ice and this was playing. Hearing it now, it sounds kinda mild, but at the time… it took my heart. And the next three years.
MOVIN ON UP - PRIMAL SCREAM
Now Kevin was a boy. He lived at one end of the corridor upstairs, I lived at the other end. You walked down the hallways and heard endless variations of the same techno tune and you bounced along till you got in your room and put on your own variation of that same tune. Kevin had a knack of getting hold of CDs as opposed to DJ mix tapes. He had his own method of shopping. And one day came back with this. The whole house listened.
TAIYO – PRANA
Return to the Source. It was the soundtrack to the early-mid Nineties. Side one was up, side two was drifty. Side two was Elly’s sleeptime music. Like Pavlov’s Dog, it sent her where she needed to go. My mate Tsyoshi was Prana and the mover behind Return. Years lost. Happily.
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS - SAMUEL BARBER
We got married to this.
DEAD MELODIES – BECK
Six years as a music critic. How lovely. Every day Postman Pat would appear with a bang of jiffys, and every day my throbbing pile of CDs to sell grew and grew. We got a good few family holidays every year out of those CDs. The curious thing was just how many CDs were released, seeing the way it all worked. How long a new band got, how they were marketed, the numbers that made it viable. Every so often there was someone who did it their way – that made it worthwhile. A letter was published in the Express saying how this person had never heard of Jah Wobble and thanks to the music page, they now had. Maybe that would have been more pleasing had I not been Letters page editor as well as Music critic.
GOOD SONG – BLUR
The best band of the Nineties, the band that defined an era, Blur were as sharp as a tack and slippery as a slick. Beck, Blur and the Scream made that music critic job worthwhile.
DOOM'S NIGHT - AZZIDO DA BASS
So then it was Sorted – the mudma years. It was kinda invigorating working for a youth title with a load of up for it Twentysomethings. Tiring but invigorating.
SONGS FOR MY WAKE – SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE
Songs For My Wake – a trip through a life tragically cut short by that freak accident involving a cheese grater, a Roman Candle and a small black and white cat called Bonnie.
VIRGINIA PLAIN - ROXY MUSIC
I once interviewed Gary Kemp of Spandaus and we were talking about formative influences. We came to the conclusion that if you were our age – and we were basically the same age – you were either formed by seeing Roxy Music do Virginia Plain on Top Of The Pops or seeing David Bowie do Starman on the same show. He chose Bowie, I chose Roxy. Maybe I knew I was never going wherever Bowie was at, but Roxy… that looked interesting. Better song, too
The idea that the death of Top Of The Pops was the death of popular culture as a meeting point is something I’ve banged on about before. Top Of The Pops was, for kids now, a curious phenomenon. The only place where a pop culture could make a splash, the only place the only time. It’s inconceivable now. There are so many outlets – so many places where you can access new stuff it seems strange that there was once one place – and one time a week – where that might happen. Back in the day, someone like Ferry could take a concept and build it and build up to that moment when it would work: that Top Of The Pops performance. He knew – Bowie knew – that if he did it right then, all the kids would be talking about it in the playground the next day. One performance – three minutes on the telly – that’s all you’d need. There’s nothing like that now.
It’s a funny thing, looking back like that. I wonder whether kids will ever have that sense of wonderment again. Looking at the telly and thinking “What the…?”
KING TUBBY MEETS ROCKERS UPTOWN - AUGUSTUS PABLO
So there was a bloke at school called something like Anthony Skolopozinsky. Something like that. Everyone called him Scollop. He was OK, a bit of an oddball, but OK. I can’t remember how or why, but I went to his flat. A dull council block in Hackney. His room though… boxes and boxes of reggae 12”s. I wish I could remember the story of how this 13-year-old Jewish boy from a dull council block in Hackney turned from a bit of an oddball to Jah Scollop but… I spent the day there being educated. And went back. I think that was the first time I heard this tune. Immediately I recognised it for what it was: the finest tune ever recorded. Don’t ask why or nothing. It just is.
FREEDOM IS FRIGHTENING – STOMU YAMASH’TA -
This boy called Geoffrey Myers joined school. He was a bit different. I can’t remember exactly why, but he was odd. Got thrown out of school not long after he arrived. I can’t remember exactly why. He was blonde – and there weren’t many blonde kids at school (it’s not a popular Jew thing) so… maybe that was it. Anyway. I hooked up with Geoffrey Myers and he took me to the Roundhouse. I’d never been before. I remember walking in and it was like a wonderland. There was this long-haired bloke who’d proclaimed himself Jesus and put on sandwich boards telling us all that we were saved. Strange characters. Weird scenes inside the goldmine as someone else once said. We went upstairs and sat down with the hard core hippies, smoked their dope, felt sick. I remember seeing all sort of bands during this period – Curved Air, Alex Harvey, the mind-blowing Hawkwind, but the thing that stands out was Stomu Yamash’ta’s Red Buddha Theatre. A theatrical troupe prancing around in a traditional manner and behind them this mad percussion-based band. It’s art, innit.
SAPPHIRE BULLETS OF PURE LOVE - MAHAVISHNU ORCHESTRA
There was a period in the early to mid Seventies where it all went a bit prog. Look, I’m a middle class white boy: it happens. I saw Yes doing Topographic Oceans, Genesis doing Lamb Lies Down On Broadway and all manner of nonsense. The straw snapped when I was taken to see ELP at Wembley and saw nothing except one of the drummer’s arms. Enough. So I holed up and took refuge in what was called jazz fusion. Weather Report, Herbie Hancock, Chick Corea, Miles. I had a particular soft spot for John McLaughlin and his Mahavishnus. Live, it was head-spinning. Mad and very funny. A famous music writer once wrote “Why judge a guitar solo by the speed with which it is played? You wouldn’t judge a novel by the speed with which it is written”. I couldn’t disagree more. The Mahavishnus. Practically perfect in every way.
MOONSHAKE - CAN
So the mid-Seventies. There was the art pop stuff, but that had gone off when Eno left Roxy (Sorry Martino – but it’s true). There was the Roundhouse hippie thing and the Scollop inspired reggae. And there was what was called KrautRock. Can were mesmeric (see A Song For Europe compilation) throwing rhythmic shapes around like aural graffiti, hitting a groove and rocking it, trance-style. One of these compilations I’ll sneak on something from Soon Over Babaluma. Can even had a hit single.
MASCULINE GENDER - RANKING TREVOR
Much of the Seventies was characterised by sitting in my room and listening to John Peel. As Tom Jones once said, it’s not unusual. You heard all manner of strange stuff there – Ivor Cutler, Sir Henry at Rawlinson End, and bags of reggae. Ranking Trevor was mid to late Seventies and has always stuck in my head. Maybe the name stood out – Trevor never seemed much of a name for a Rasta dude, but it’s a fantastic tune.
WHAT IN THEWORLD – DAVID BOWIE
Listening to John Peel and getting stoned. “Jeremy. You look dopey” as my mother once said.
ONE CHORD WONDERS - THE ADVERTS
Punk was very funny, and after all that really quite serious mid-Seventies stuff (both musical and life) an astonishing breath of fresh air. I kinda knew it was going to come – I’d seen Patti Smith and The Stranglers at The Roundhouse, but not sadly The Ramones – but still. The thing with punk is that I was close, but not that close. The same time Johnny was doing his audition at Sex… There was a second hand clothes shop on The Kings Road called Eat Your Heart Out which sold very fine old zoot suits a few doors away from Sex, just round the bend. I used to hang out in this shop, happily ignored by everyone in there – they were far cooler than a boy like me – blissfully unaware that about 10 yards away there was a social revolution being hatched. Frankly, I was more interested in whether the jacket had six buttons or four. Similarly the punk band I latched onto was The Adverts - I went to see them Saturday nights at The Nashville – possibly the least cool of all the early punk bands. One question: did the Clash have Gaye Advert?
REPITITION - THE FALL
Was there ever a band like The Fall? No. Never was, never will be. This was the song that convinced me of their greatness. The B-side of their first single. Frankly startling. The Fall were the reason (along with Joy Division and the side-fact that it was the only college in the western hemisphere to offer me a place) that I went to Manchester Poly. How many Fall gigs did I see there? What can I tell you? I got a third. I once dragged Sarah and Catherine to a Fall gig at Manchester University. I don’t think either spoke to me for weeks. Obviously they were so grateful they didn’t know quite what to say. It reminds me of the time I finally got to take out Perry Burns. I was maybe 15. I’d been dancing round her maypole for ages and she finally relented. In time honoured teen boy fashion, I decided to take her to the cinema. (Listen, we’ve all seen the popcorn scene in Diner). Anyway I thought I’d show her how sophisticated I was and took her to see Last Tango In Paris… That went down well. (Which is more than you can say for her…)
DO THE DU - A CERTAIN RATIO
Manchester was supposed to be all about Joy Division and in a way it was. I saw them there more than a few times and, seeing Ian Curtis on stage, it wasn’t a total surprise that he topped himself. But really our band was ACR. They were locals and we got to know them a fair bit. Mick better than me. He played football in the same team as them. They had this club, The Beach Club, which was a house in a street. The lounge was the stage, a bedroom upstairs the bar. We saw U2 at the Beach on their first UK tour, helped them load their gear at the end of the night. ACR were properly one of us. Never did understand why they didn’t hit big.
NEVER UNDERSTAND - THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
This kinda summed up my feelings about Eighties music. It largely passed me by. It looked good and everything was seemingly in the right place, but there was no… middle. No soul. All that faux jazz, it left me cold. JAMC were the perfect antidote to all that perfect smooth-edged pop where production values were more important than heart. They had better tunes too, though nobody ever cared about that.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT - JOHN COLTRANE
All through this journey, rhythm took precedent over melody. The grooves of Can. The heartbeat of dub. Looking back, I wish I had been more of a disco head – it sounds more fun than anything else. But I wasn’t. I can’t remember a single Eighties band I cared about. The Smiths I only ever cared for after the event. There was the odd rap tune I locked into, but I didn’t dig the posturing. Reggae moved into syrupy lovers and shouty dancehall. So I took refuge in jazz. Jazz had all the ingredients that the Eighties lacked. I was going to pick Eric Dolphy’s Out To Lunch, undeniably the last great acoustic jazz album, but in the end plumped for this. You can’t argue with it. And at a wake… it’d be perfect.
PURE (ENERGY) – GTO
Then I found myself in Tokyo. That’s a story for another CD but consider this. We walked into the Maharajah Palace, and were immediately dubbed ‘The Two Fat Yuppies’. That went down well. I walked into the lounge, a louche parlour where bodies were sprawled all over the place. I asked a young hunk, a Canadian called Bradley, what the story that night was. “We’ll go to Gold and take some acid”. I’d never had any acid. Then again, I’d never been to Gold before. Or Tokyo come to that. So I went. I walked in, and took some acid that Bradley gave me. The whole place was full of dry ice and this was playing. Hearing it now, it sounds kinda mild, but at the time… it took my heart. And the next three years.
MOVIN ON UP - PRIMAL SCREAM
Now Kevin was a boy. He lived at one end of the corridor upstairs, I lived at the other end. You walked down the hallways and heard endless variations of the same techno tune and you bounced along till you got in your room and put on your own variation of that same tune. Kevin had a knack of getting hold of CDs as opposed to DJ mix tapes. He had his own method of shopping. And one day came back with this. The whole house listened.
TAIYO – PRANA
Return to the Source. It was the soundtrack to the early-mid Nineties. Side one was up, side two was drifty. Side two was Elly’s sleeptime music. Like Pavlov’s Dog, it sent her where she needed to go. My mate Tsyoshi was Prana and the mover behind Return. Years lost. Happily.
ADAGIO FOR STRINGS - SAMUEL BARBER
We got married to this.
DEAD MELODIES – BECK
Six years as a music critic. How lovely. Every day Postman Pat would appear with a bang of jiffys, and every day my throbbing pile of CDs to sell grew and grew. We got a good few family holidays every year out of those CDs. The curious thing was just how many CDs were released, seeing the way it all worked. How long a new band got, how they were marketed, the numbers that made it viable. Every so often there was someone who did it their way – that made it worthwhile. A letter was published in the Express saying how this person had never heard of Jah Wobble and thanks to the music page, they now had. Maybe that would have been more pleasing had I not been Letters page editor as well as Music critic.
GOOD SONG – BLUR
The best band of the Nineties, the band that defined an era, Blur were as sharp as a tack and slippery as a slick. Beck, Blur and the Scream made that music critic job worthwhile.
DOOM'S NIGHT - AZZIDO DA BASS
So then it was Sorted – the mudma years. It was kinda invigorating working for a youth title with a load of up for it Twentysomethings. Tiring but invigorating.
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