Nominations For God XCIII

Herman Mellville

Silly Billy

We didn't come away from IKEA entirely emptied handed the other day. Following my discovery that they'd stopped doing the CD inserts that fitted into the Billy bookcase, I've had to adopt another system to address the storage crisis that has been raging in the yellow room of late.

Fortunately Tom isn't adverse to whipping out his Allen Key...

Joe enters the room briefly but decides that discretion is the better part of valour when it comes to shelf building in the yellow room...

Tom carries on regardless...



And in no time at all two Benno CD have joined the Billy Bookcase ensemble to make sweet music...

Morning Reading V

Normally on these occasions I try to travel into Newcastle with Lesley on her way to work. I get to pretend to be a commuter which after not being one for several years now, is something of a novelty.

However, I had to abandon my usual rendezvous with Lesley in order to deal with several emails that had arrived overnight. That meant I didn’t step onto the platform until after 9.30 a.m.

That hour or so made a difference and reminded why I don’t really miss commuting to work anymore.

The young man, who didn’t so much sit down as crash land onto the seat beside me, began talking almost immediately. Not to me, and so far as I could see, not to anyone else within the spectrum of human vision.

As he interrogated the air about him, his personal hygiene - think ripe shellsuit mottled with historical sprayjobs of over-used deodorant - also began an intensive barrage of eye-watering nasal karate.

His conversation with himself for the most part was good natured though it was impossible to determine what the subject matter was.

The best thing to have done would have been to get up and change seats. Being British this would appear to be impolite and so I stayed put taking an even closer interest in my book for the remaining fifteen minutes of my journey.

Once the metro arrived at Monument Station we parted company and I escaped into the bright morning air.


Without thinking about where I was going my feet took me down Grey Street (the left hand fork in the photo above). Half way down at the point where Grey Street is bisected by High Bridge I paused. Looking back up Grey Street...


And then down towards a rollercoaster view that tumbles down toward the junction with Mosley Street, tipping into Dean Street before sharply ascending to the railway viaduct and above it, on the other side of the river Gateshead.

Down into Dean Street...


The viaduct in use...


Above that, the 60s structure of Gateshead’s multi-story carpark which famously had a bit part in Get Carter and clutter of suburban rooftops beyond.

Then I turned right into High Bridge...


Squeezed in behind High Bridge is this little court yard...

It's in between the cracks like this where you find little shards and fragments which have somehow resisted or escaped modernisation and improvements...

In a space that is a car park for the offices in Grey Street and other business, 19th Century bricks are piled directly onto much older stones...

Then into an alleyway leading onto the Cloth Market...





Out in Cloth Market the little red shop used to sell one main product. It was here somewhere around 1979 or 1980 that I bought my first typewriter. A little green plastic Remington. I think it cost around £25. A shop selling typewriters. Imagine that.

A few yards further down Cloth Market there’s White Hart Yard. Padlocked and gated, it’s as if they want to keep this aberrant bit of the past from buckling out to escape and infect the modernity that surrounds it.

The view on the other side of the street...

The past is a different country. They keep the rubbish there.

The contagion spreads if it's not properly contained. You can see the grime of older times seeping through facades and facelifts...

Crossing Mosley Street, here's a fine example of our town planners in the 60s in their pursuit of their "Brasillia of the North" dreams...

Then onto Collingwood Street, once the financial heart of the city...

And here's the same view (almost) circa 1900...

From here I ended up at the Lit & Phil.

It was busy today and there was even a queue at the little hatch from which tea and biscuits are obtained.

My associative reading today took me from poetry, music, and the flu pandemic of 1918 via parapsychology. Another example of the past catching up with the present...

A Wash Out

A trip to IKEA is always enough to have one reaching into the very depths of the meaning of the word regret.

When Lesley rang to say she'd be happy to take Tom and I up to the store in search of a new bed for the lad it was accompanied by the words "providing it doesn't lash down". Within in minutes of us setting out the heavens opened and downloaded biblical proportions of the wet stuff.


Why is it that it rains every time we make this journey?


Is it the gods shedding tears at another car full of hapless mortals who have failed to learn that no amount of Delicato Punschrulle can compensate for discovering that the item the helpful IKEA staff-person told you was in stock, isn't?

By the time we arrived the rain had stopped and play was about to begin. As you can see Tom was relishing the prospect of getting a new bed.


And of course, despite being told that the item was in stock when we tried to find the damn thing, it wasn't.

Back home Tom and I went online and tried to buy the bed frame and matttress. Great - they had both. But wait. What about those bed slats which expressly do not come with the bedframe? Surely they sell those online? No. However, they are in stock at the shop.

Orwell's Children V

The Nice Fillmore East 1969

Live And Unleashed...
Fillmore East 1969
The Nice
EMI

Out of all of EMI's new reissues of The Nice's Charisma label back catalogue, this two-disc set totaling over 90 minutes is likely to be of most interest to fans of The Nice.

Whilst a couple of tracks from this gig have been previously bulked up albums such as The Nice (1969) and Elegy (1971), this is the first time the complete concert at New York's legendary Fillmore East has been released.

Whilst the studio albums were often a little too variable for their own good, hearing the set flow from start to finish gives us a greater appreciation of how powerful and cohesive a unit The Nice were in concert.

Whilst Keith Emerson's off-the-cuff quotes of Bach and other popular classics may sound a touch arch by today's standards, it's easy to forget how hard-edged and radical this was to audiences largely fed on a diet of bluesy guitar jams.

This, coupled with his theatrical mauling of the Hammond organ, added not only an arresting visual dimension but the resulting ear-bleeding atonality of such pre-meditated destruction gave the group something of an avant-garde frisson as well.

Though Lee Jackson's sandpaper-rasp of a voice suited the rockier repertoire, his limitations are spotlighted in the quieter parts such as their imaginative reading of Tim Hardin's sublime Hang On To A Dream.

Nevertheless, Jackson's bass playing was entirely dependable and together with drummer Brian Davison's always elegant but always robust sense of swing, the pair provided an unswerving rhythm section that was in effect the safety net to Emerson's high-wire act and what made the band such an exciting proposition.

When this show was recorded The Nice were only weeks away from breaking up. Yet the risk-taking that went from Dylan to Dvorak remains exhilarating, edgy and largely underrated.

This review first appeared here.

No-Man On DVD

Last night I watched a preview copy of a forthcoming documentary about no-man which director Richard Smith had very kindly sent me.

Smith has nailed that deep centre on which no-man's music rests: melancholy, loss, possibility, hope. None of these topics are easy to convey without coming over as precious or obvious but the measured narrative which the documentary constructs really brings these elements out with sensitivity and respect for the subject matter.

Resisting the temptation to cover the screen in "arty" shots, jump cuts and all the other tosh one sees in so many documentaries these days also contributed to reasons why this was so watchable.

So often the director’s own artistic vision takes precedence over the subject matter and get in the way (don't get me started about Alan Yentob!!!). What I like about what Richard Smith has done is to relate the tale slowly and allow the participants ian unmediated space in which to talk and take time to express themselves and make their point.

It's more like a discussion rather than a trussed-up, trimmed series of soundbites.

Being a relative newcomer to no-man, it was fascinating getting the backstory on the early days with Ben Coleman, battle of the band competitions, the tensions which caused Bowness and Wilson to go it alone as a duo, and their “odd couple” working methods.

The bottom line is it made me want to play the albums and immerse myself in that world they painstakingly create.


Schoolyard Ghosts review
All The Blue Changes review

Here And There

Debbie, Sam and Al left today for their annual visit to Wales to see Deb's father Bill and his wife, Kath. I always hate it when they make this journey, worrying that some terrible accident may befall them.

Sam said "Come on, my driving's not that bad." Of course it's not Sam's driving that I'm worried about. It's the driving of the others that always makes me nervous about this most precious of cargoes.




After they'd left I checked what Tom and Joe were up to and we quickly planned a menu for the next few days. Happily for me, the boys went up into town to do the shopping.

Living at the coast we often get coastguards going up and down en route somewhere. This afternoon though the rooftiles themselves were rattling as the big helicopter from RAF Boulmer swung into view.

I could also see coastguards moving up and down sea front. After twenty minutes or so, Joe emerged to tell me that according to his pals on MSN / texting, they were looking for a couple of swimmers who'd been reported as being in trouble.

Not long after that the regular police helicopter joined in the search. The noise from the two machines was truly deafening.


I could see a small crowd gathering at the seafront. I decided we should stay where we were indoors.

As I received texts from Debra updating me hourly on their progress to Wales, Tom, Joe and myself went about the daily routine of cooking, talking, gaming, reading, listening to music.

The noise from the helicopters came and went across the rest of the afternoon and again late at night.

Nominations For God XCII

Derek Bailey

Morning Reading IV

Another enjoyable commute to Newcastle with my sister Lesley. Arriving in town a little after 8.30 a.m. we had time to have a cup of tea at the Central library and catch-up on family matters, T. Dan Smith (no relation), and er, the nature of corruption.

After walking Lesley along to her place of work I realised that I'd stupidly forgot to charge the battery for the camera. So instead of the planned photo essay about the majestic sweep of municipal architecture or some such nonsense, I only had enough for power for half a dozen shots. This despite having not one but two batteries following the recent demise of the FZ-18.

En route to the Lit & Phil, I ended up on St. Nicholas Street looking back up towards Newcastle’s cathedral.

And here's the same view (almost) circa 1900...

Then onto my favourite port of call...


The Lit & Phil was fairly quiet today. Several regulars were in. I checked out to see if they had any more titles by Cormac McCarthy. I'd recently read The Road after being prompted to do so by blog pal Steven.

I read The Road sitting and came away emotionally exhausted and drained by the experience. The only other title they had was the second part of a trilogy which didn't seem like the best place to begin. So it was into the local history section in search of T Dan.

T Dan's autobiography was out on loan and after several associative browsings I found myself almost back where I began in the arts and recreation section. Next to these shelves there's a vestibule leading towards the fire exit...

which has to be one of the most impressive fire exits I've ever seen...





Let’s here it for The North of England Institute of Mining and Mechanical Engineers!

from which an absolutely determined persistence emanated

There are days when you’re firing on all cylinders and days when you get quite get the engine to turn over like it should. Today its the latter rather than the former. And it’s not as if what I’m trying to do should be cause for any great strain on the old grey matter. Still, thems the breaks, as Tommy Saxondale would no doubt say at this point.

I've been enjoying Iain Sinclair's excellent book Hackney, That Rose-Red Empire. Sinclair's writing is simply stunning.

The procession of alternative or previously unheard histories that come via his research or actual interviews with Hackney residents ensures that almost every page contains surprises, unexpected juxtapositions, resonances that filter out way beyond the geographical boundaries which the title suggests.

At one point Sinclair interviews poet Peter Riley who mentions one-time Hackney resident, guitarist Derek Bailey. It's one of the best descriptions of Bailey and his music I've come across.

"The 'free-improvisation' experimentalist Derek Bailey lived at 14 Downs Road, Just off Hackney Downs. The house was like...well there's a whole book could be written. It was like witnessing a small den from which an absolutely determined persistence emanated, not to compromise in any way the kind of music he'd created, but to doggedly carry on against against all the odds, starting and running a small record label, arranging concerts, establishing global connections...always knowing that it had to remain small-scale or perish."

I became a big fan of Bailey's music when I first heard it sometime in the mid-70s. Someone introduced me to it (possibly Keith Morris?) and so this mention prompted me to play the album he recorded for David Sylvian's Samadhisound label, To Play.

Consisting of his trademark splintery, spider-like runs on the acoustic and electric guitar, I'm not sure this was Bailey's best album but it is certainly the best recorded, conveying a lovely sense of the space in which he's sitting and the visceral, angular edge to his work.

Elsewhere, my listening veered to another guitarist, Ben Chasny and his psych folk project, Six Organs Of Admittance, and the new album Luminous Night which is out next month. My first take on it was that it was all bright and airy compared the bleak terrain of Shelter From The Ash.
Closer inspection of the lyrics however has firmly dispelled this notion.

Then visitors to the yellow room in the shape of my neice Errin and her pal, Sten.



They were looking to borrow a couple of early seasons of The Wire. It also turned out that Sten was a fan of Six Organs Of Admittance and so they accidently were able to get a preview of the new record.

Sometimes it pays off having a rock n' roll uncle!

Street Life CLXXIII

Orwell's Children IV

Over The Moon?

Actually, I never got over the moon.

To get so far and so high seemed such an achievement back then. And it still does today.

This hunk of rock that slowly rakes over and across our lives still drags a breathless fascination out of me every time I see it.

The boldness of the Apollo programme’s achievements remains undiminished and unequalled; a Heath-Robinson lash-up traversing distance and expectations against the odds.

The fact that only a small bunch of men out of the billions on this planet made it there and back a handful of times only deepens the pull and attraction of its mystery.

A Pair Of Glasses

The Nice Five Bridges

Tune Army
Five Bridges
The Nice
EMI

Rock and classical music fusions have often ended up being damned by both sides of the cultural divide. Those artists venturing into such areas can find themselves labelled 'pretentious' by rock purists or simply patronised by a condescending elite.

Not that such criticism stopped those trying to experiment and push the boundaries in the hothouse days of 60s popular music. The Nice had previous form with classical cross-overs. An incendiary version of Bernstein's America had led the charge on their 1967 debut, and in 1968 they rocked up Bach's Brandenburg concerto on Ars Longa Vita Brevis.

However Five Bridges represented Keith Emerson's first serious attempt in his own right to mix the oil and water which rock and classical music traditionally represented.

Commissioned by the Newcastle Arts Festival in 1969, with Geordie ex-pat, bassist and vocalist, Lee Jackson providing a bitter-sweet libretto about his hometown, Emerson's intention was to try and build bridges between the different forms.

Emerson bolted together a collection of stirring themes in the Romantic tradition, threw in a dash of jazz (with some of the best players of the day including Joe Harriott) and cranked up the volume all the way to eleven.

Whilst it's true the results are variable, there's probably a greater degree of integration achieved here than on the comparable effort by Deep Purple's Concerto for Group and Orchestra from the same year.

Brimming with ambition and passion the trio throw themselves into the project. It might be lacking finesse but even 40 years later, the freshness underpinning the music comes through as they kick hard against the boundaries.

There’s a last night of the Proms feel during the ragged Fairfield Hall Finale but what it lacks in technical precision it more than makes up with some spirited head to heads between band and orchestra.

What distinguishes Five Bridges from several of its other cross-over colleagues is Emerson's willingness to engage with some jazz settings - something he'd done with spectacular effect on For Example from 1969's The Nice.

As a performer he was always fond of slipping in quotes from jazz standards almost as much as he did with popular classical pieces. Yet interestingly, Five Bridges also represents Emerson's last serious attempt to work with the medium aside from a brace of rag-time and boogie-woogie album fillers.

This remaster beats the 1990 version by some considerable distance by not only presenting the concert in full for the first time but in the inclusion of a truncated version of Five Bridges taken from the band’s Radio One sessions.

By the time of its original 1970 release when it reached number two in the album charts, The Nice were history. Along with Greg Lake and Carl Palmer, Emerson would enjoy world-wide adulation and yet more grandiose symphonic adventures.

These days however its the relatively humble musing of The Nice which often sounds the more adventurous and artistically satisfying of the two.

This review first appeared here...

Nominations For God XCI

Dick Lester

Morning Reading III

Dramatic skies followed me all the way from Whitley Bay to Newcastle this morning...

Moving down Grey Street I turned up High Bridge and came out onto Cloth Market and paused by the entrance to the Old George courtyard...

In the early 70s this pub was our destination of choice. Sometimes Bernard and I could only afford one pint between us all night but we weren't ever there for beer. It was the company and the great jukebox. Steppenwolf, Deep Purple, Led Zeppelin, The Nice and all the usual long-hair heroes of the day.
Ah, the tales this courtyard could tell. It could be a place of romantic assignation, furious fisticuffs or profound bladderment - and sometimes a worrying combination of all three!

Standing here today I recalled a steamy clinch with a girl I'd never met before just seconds after she had finished vomiting into the nearby drain. You see, I told you it was a special place.

Destiny of a different sort could also shuffle impatiently across those cobbles.

I also remember getting a high-velocity knuckle-duster forcefully scrunched into my mush. As I hit the ground I pissed myself with fright as the blokey who done for me was a well-known psycho. Apparently it was all a misunderstanding!

Oh how I laughed as I sat in the casualty department in wet thigh-chaffing denim jeans, getting a couple of stitches in my bonce.

My bonce and bladder thankfully intact today I left The George courtyard, paused a moment to take in the site of the old Pumphrey's coffee shop and cafe and down a steps further to contemplate another development.

This office block replaced the old town hall sometime in the late 60s or early 70s. I'm not sure if this is an example of architectural gallows humour but some wag thought it would be a wizard wheeze to incorporate the old and new in one harmonious union.

No doubt the word "synergy" was bandied about at some point...

More dramatic skies glowered at me beside the job centre in a week when it was announced that the jobless total had risen to its highest level in 14 years.

From here it was but a hop skip and jump along Collingwood Street and onto Westgate Road

Here's the same view (almost) circa 1900...

and then into the Lit & Phil for another recharge of the batteries...

Morning reading this morning included The Collected Essays, Journalism and Letters of George Orwell, Volume 1. I bypassed the seminal essay Why I Write and in doing so discovered Orwell giving fellow writer, Jack Common, advice about which toilet paper to avoid in case it blocks the septic tank.


I was joined later by pal and occasional podcaster round these pages, Chris. He'd been doing his weekly grocery shopping in Byker and popped up to town for a cup of tea and a catch-up.

Orwell's Children III

The Deviants Ptooff!

The revolution started here!
Ptooff!
The Deviants
Esoteric Recordings

Think of England in 1967 and the chances are that images of people wearing flowers in their hair, Jimi Hendrix getting all experienced and the supporting cast on the cover of Sgt. Pepper's will psychedelically swirl into view.

But some railed against what they regarded as a media-spun exercise in perception management right off the bat. The Deviants, led by writer and cultural agent-provocateur, Mick Farren, not only saw dead-hand establishment as the enemy but flower power hippiedom as a dead end in itself.

They regarded both as equally dangerous to the counter-culture and to be avoided at all costs. Their debut album was initially self-produced, self-packaged and sold directly to punters as a means of bypassing 'The Man'. Ptooff! offered something that wasn’t easily incorporated into 1967's homogeneous hallucination.

Gathering up spiky rock 'n' roll remnants along with shards of The Fugs, mutated Bo Diddley riffs, comic book cosmology, avant-garde tape loops suffused with polemics and left-over beat poetry, The Deviants hurled it all at a scene increasingly dominated more by commercialism than karma.

A suite of songs intercut with agitprop poetry, cut-price sci-fi, subliminal skits, sketches and skronking guitar, Ptooff! is a 35-minute manifesto standing against the wide-eyed drift of the day.

To describe the album as rough and ready is something of an understatement. Though musical skills improved over two further albums, Disposable (1968) and Three (1969), perversely this diluted their 'blunt weapon' appeal. The incendiary aspects of what The Deviants were trying to do were never as fiery or as full-blooded as on this first record.

A huge influence on the Pink Fairies and Hawkwind, these guys were proto-punk when Johnny Rotten was just a spotty-faced twelve year old. You don't find Ptooff! mentioned in those '1001 platters to play before you pop your clogs' books, but it should be.

This review first appeared here

Jack Bruce Harmony Row

Where the road's echoes sing...
Harmony Row
Jack Bruce
Polydor

Legend has it that during a momentary truce with his demons, Bruce sat at the piano one afternoon in 1969, and from his fingertips there flowed what was in effect a suite of songs, coming one after another in a cascade of audacious creativity. In the course of a visionary few hours of amazing lucidity, sensing the freedom to go anywhere he wanted, the songs that would comprise Harmony Row tumbled into place.

Whereas his debut album Songs For A Tailor (1969) was a clearing house of blues, soul and jazz-inflected tunes that had largely been abandoned during Cream’s burn-out, Harmony Row by comparison was the result of a player embracing new ideas and modes. Tapping into memories about his childhood and the inevitable passing of time, the album stretched beyond the usual confines and comfort zones of straight blues-based rock per se, incorporating the kind of confessional intimacy we associate with artists such as Nick Drake and others.

Promotional duties and performances in support of Songs For A Tailor and a stint with Tony Williams’ Lifetime meant it would be another year before he was able to finally commit those songs to an album.

Recorded during a short space of time in London’s Command Studios, the album’s sparse line-up consisted of Bruce supplying bass, keyboards and vocals, guitarist Chris Spedding and drummer John Marshall. This pared-back setting provides Harmony Row with the kind of detail and focus which Bruce had never quite managed beforehand either in Cream or as an aspiring solo artist, and in some respects, has yet to equal.

This is Bruce laid bare, shaping the words of his regular collaborator, Pete Brown, into a series of poetic vignettes that move from oblique preludes such as Can You Follow and There’s A Forest, the evocative soundscapes of Escape to the Royal Wood (on ice); the regretful dream-laden melancholia of Victoria Sage - a truly elegiac ballad; Morning Story and the spectral evocation of Glasgow bohemia bumping up against 9 to 5 suburbia, Smiles And Grins. This last piece haunting song is played to perfection and is arguably the best marriage of the Bruce and Brown team. As with Morning Story, the song remains part of Bruce’s live repertoire more than 35 years after it was recorded.

Harmony Row is not Bruce the blues bruiser but Bruce boxing clever, moving his game with the finesse and aplomb of a primetime Mohammad Ali, knowing exactly when to float and when to sting. Though he’ll always be best known for his time with Cream and lauded for his explosive brand of power-play bass, Bruce is an artist whose position as a sensitive and expressive songwriter has been long been overlooked and consistently undervalued.

Homework

After Joe had been rugby training this morning he came into the room and asked if he could use the laptop. Sitting down, he opened up a folder of papers and notes, revved up the laptop and for the next couple of hours proceed to tap away at his business studies coursework.

I was astonished at Joe’s dedication and discipline. I had not asked him to do the work or reminded him it was due. It was his own organisation that had prompted him to spend the afternoon and early evening in the yellow room.

I simply cannot imagine being that motivated or disciplined myself at that age. Which is of course why I left school without any qualifications.

As I was working myself I asked if he minded the music being on. “Don’t worry, Dad, that’s what headphones are for.”

Fire The Magic Shoemaker

A Load Of Cobblers?
The Magic Shoemaker
Fire
Esoteric Recordings

Artist’s juvenalia is often pored over to see if anything in their past pointed toward their success in the future. Yet Lambert’s case you’d be hard pressed to find any real inkling of what he was capable of until the Strawbs. His arrival in that group provided the catalyst that saw Strawbs reinvent themselves as a fully-fledged prog act with 1974’s Hero And Heroine.

Though Dave Cousins’ dramatic and discursive visions had been leading the way for several years, it was Lambert’s instrumental reach gave them the specialist backbone needed to tackle the more ambitious material in a way which was both credible and consistent.

Prior to Strawbs, Lambert had paid his dues in Mungo Jerry remnant King Earl Boogie Band and before that, there was Fire.

Jumping aboard the the concept album bandwagon, The Magic Shoemaker, has Lambert narrating a fairy story to a bunch of enthralled kids between which loosely related songs come and go.

Recorded in 1969 and released the following year, Lambert (guitar voice and keyboards), Bob Voice (drums) and Dick Dufall (bass and vocals) push their way through a set liberally sprinkled with some psychedelic leftovers and a pinch of Traffic’s RnB grit.

As the principal writer, this is Lambert as a jobbing jack-of-all-trades keen to try his hand at a variety of styles. Essentially, this results in a bright and breezy pop ethic which occasionally throws a nod in the direction of the underground scene with a few heavyweight guitar licks, as well as a guest spot on banjo from future musical collaborator, Dave Cousins.

The dated nature of the material means that this is probably one for hardcore collectors, and as if to emphasise this, Fire’s 1968 material is also admirably gathered in.

This includes the groovy-tinged rocker, Father’s Name Is Dad, which had excited the hit-detecting ears of Paul McCartney causing the group to be signed briefly to Apple. Full marks also for the warts-and-all inclusion of Treacle Toffee World which has Fire sounds like the spawn of Syd Barrett and Ray Davies.

Morning Reading II

I'd meant to get into Newcastle yesterday but a pending deadline made me think twice and so I stayed at home. Not so today. Once again I met Lesley at the Metro and we commuted into town and had enough time to grab a cuppa at the newly opened library.

Once Lesley went off to work, I headed up to the sixth floor where I had an appointment with the microfiche. I was leafing through copies of The Evening Chronicle circa October 1969 for a piece I'm about to do a little work on.

An hour or so later I packed up but not before taking advantage of the commanding views which the library now offers.



And down into the most depressing public space known to man. I have now re-christened this place Ennui Square.

I managed to drag myself away from the view (lest I throw myself into its maw) and made my way to the Lit & Phil via the Bigg Market...

Here's the same view (almost) circa 1966...

Down Pudding Chare, I paused to take a snap of the revamped Printers Pie so that blog chum, Tim Sokell, could feast his eyes upon the glory that is Fleet Street...

Then across Westgate Road to the Lit & Phil...


Inside I was on a mission. A few years ago Debra urged me to read The Road by Cormac McCarthy. I never did. However, after reading an entry about the book by blog chum Steven, I thought I'd bump this book to the top of my reading list.


Then to find a quiet spot to catch up on some work related reading, some more poetry (Tom Pickard, Basil Bunting), a book on Wallsend and The Road.



Another wonderful few hours in this spendid building. Leaving it a few hours later I felt replenished and ready to get back to the grindstone.

Nominations For God XC

Shirley Bassey

Street Life CLXXII (Including Yellow Room Prelude VIII)

Doctor Who The War Games

Out Of The Unknown...
The War Games
Dr. Who
Patrick Troughton
DVD

The last few evenings I’ve been watching the newly released Doctor Who DVD The War Games. Dating from 1969 it was the last story in Patrick Troughton’s three year run in the role.

I saw this was it was first transmitted and back then the Doctor and his background really was a mystery.

As a kid I was on the edge of the seat as the Doctor ran from one danger into another as he criss-crossed between WW1, the American Civil War and the alien base lurking at the centre of it all.

The foreboding menace as the Doctor slowly exposed a vast, cruel conspiracy made this one of the most exciting stories I can remember from the period.

This was compounded even further as aspects of the Doctor’s renegade past were opened up to the viewing public for the first time. I’d been watching the programme for six years, and this was undoubtedly one of the most jaw-dropping tales of the show.

40 years later I can see all the huge holes in the plot, and the cheap and cheerful acting and sets.

However, I can forgive then all because at its heart this is a ripping yarn that moves at a cracking pace, is tightly directed and when those cliff-hangers come, one is left clinging on by the fingertips.

Yet if The War Games represents the best of times it also qualifies as the beginning of the worst of times.

In the years following Troughton’s departure, successive writers working on the show have increasingly relied on the Doctor’s regenerative abilities and the world of the Time Lords for sub-standard plot devices, pandering to fans or chasing headlines.

Once upon a time regeneration was something that was uncharted and fraught with uncertainty - not only for the characters but for those at home.

Sadly, the brilliance of this unique invention has been diminished and squandered in recent years, with the current show being the very worst of numerous offenders.

Outside of the unavoidable departure of the lead, expediency becomes the guiding principle.

Every time a layer of the mystery that was central to the original series is peeled away, when things which were once cataclysmic become commonplace, then something of the magic dies.

Unlike the lead role, that magic - the vital tension between innocence and experience - can never be regenerated.

Zed-U Night time on the Middle Passage

Night Time on the Middle Passage
Zed-U
Babel

Although groups such as Led Bib, Troyka and Partisans occupy significantly different aspects of the spectrum, they all share a desire to move the boundaries as to what might or might not be classified as jazz these days. Now we can add to this distinguished list the debut album of Zed-U.

Having formed only two years ago, Shabaka Hutchings (tenor sax, clarinet), Neil Charles (electric and synth bass) and Tom Skinner (drums, keyboards and voice) have been creating quite an impression on the live circuit.

Augmented by carefully deployed electronica, their chosen way of working alternates between the resonant echo-heavy interiors of dub and a standard jazz trio.

The economy with which Hutchings and the team set out on a series of instrumentals is impressive. Traveling so lightly means they leave plenty of room for each other in what is largely a restrained affair.

Though Hutchings' tenor playing is crisp and clean throughout, it's his beautiful clarinet work that takes centre stage and demands attention. The instruments innately sonorous, often mournful qualities are frequently complimented by Skinner’s gentle fronds of chilled sine-wave synth.

On the multi-sectioned, eight minute long Breaking The News there's a dreamy nonchalance sometimes to Hutchings' phrases but when it reaches out of the washes of reverb and loops, he makes stark and emotive assertions.

However, it doesn't always fire on all cylinders. The barking freak-out strategy of Surman Part 2 (one of two homages to sax and clarinet maestro John Surman) sounds more akin to an in-joke than than the product of necessary expression.

Though it occasionally lacks compositional punch, Zed-U's debut is nevertheless an accomplished affair that suggests the band have the capacity to grow and evolve into something very special indeed.

This review first appeared here.

And Now Here Is The Noose

Every now and then you get reminded that despite its veneer of sophistication the interweb can often be little more than a brawling saloon bar in the wild West or a braying lynch mob hungry for blood.

In the last day or so there’s been a little bit of controversy about what appeared to be a music critic for a daily newspaper putting up an unopened promo disc on ebay. I came across this story via Twitter and went to Stereokill (a site I’d not heard of before) to check it out.

The fact that the artist concerned, Imogen Heap, was taking direct action and trying to scupper the sale by upping the bid to millions of dollars appealed to me.

I’ve had experience of trying to persuade Ebay (not to mention Blogger, Myspace, Wordpress, et al) that a particular user is breaching their stated terms and conditions, often to no particular effect. Figuring that it's often easier to get blood from a stone, I was pleased to see Imogen taking it on this way.

Another artist whose work I'm fond of, Thomas Dolby, picked up on the Ebay battle in what I thought was a great post about music critics in general and has since reported today that the issue has been resolved.

What was interesting for me in all of this was the response to the story over in Stereokill’s comments section; veiled threats, demands for resignations, people offering all kinds of “helpful suggestions” as to how the investigation should be pursued and prosecuted.

It’s not what is being said so much as the tone of it.

By internet standards it’s all fairly tame stuff.

Yet I can’t help shudder when I read this kind of "hang 'em high" knee-jerk tosh which people always seem in such a hurry to spout off.

Dick Heckstall-Smith A Story Ended

From out of the margins...
A Story Ended Dick Heckstall-Smith
Esoteric Recordings

Best known for his work initially with Graham Bond and later Colosseum, Dick Heckstall-Smith’s one and only solo album was released in 1972. Celebrated in some circles for being able to carry off Roland Kirk’s trick of playing two saxes at the same time, he also doubled up as a composer of distinction.

Recorded in the wake of Colosseum’s demise, he teamed up with lyricist Pete Brown and perhaps it’s no surprise the writing doesn’t sound a million miles away from those sinewy, winding tunes Jack Bruce specialised in somewhere between Song For A Tailor and Out of the Storm.

Heckstall-Smith’s democratic instincts means that his fiery sax playing he never particularly dominates the tunes which are delivered by a cast of supporting players who are subject to change from track to track.

No less than four vocalists (Paul Williams, Mark Clarke, Chris Farlowe and Graham Bond) wrap their not inconsiderable lungpower around Brown’s often oblique but always poetic observations.

That occasionally causes a slightly uneven gait but the full-blooded forward momentum of the performances is never fatally undermined. A Story Ended reminds us that whilst the histories of progressive rock often celebrate the big names of the field, excellence was often being pursued in the margins and footnotes as well.

Throughout the record, blues, jazz and rock are often ambitiously posited next to one another and carried off with aplomb and distinction. The Pirate's Dream, dating back to Colosseum but never realised by the band) is finally nailed in all its 11 minute, multi-part epic glory.

This package comes with several bonus tracks which document what Dick did next; a collection of live tracks which may or may not be Colosseum or Dick’s outfit, Manchild. A Story Ended prophetically marked Heckstall-Smith’s departure from music for several years. With his passing in 2004 this is as good as a testimony to his capabilities as you’re likely to find.

Street Life CLXXI

Nominations For God LXXXIX

Peter Ackroyd

Morning Reading I

A change of scene today: I met Lesley outside the Metro Station a little before 8.00 a.m. and we did her usual commute into Newcastle. I have something of an odd nostalgia for commuting to work.

Being self-employed the biggest amount of travelling I do most mornings is from the bedroom to the kitchen to make a pot of tea. So bizarrely, this trip into Newcastle counts as something of a treat.

After saying goodbye to Lesley, I paused to take in my surroundings for a moment on the corner of Hood Street looking down Grey Street...

Back up to Earl Grey's Monument...

looking back towards what used to Mawson, Swan and Morgan's shop and until recently, a branch of Waterstones...

Then heading off down Grey Street...

Walking down Pudding Chare I passed a pub which is now called Fleet Street. The last time I had a cheeky one in there was probably sometime in the 80s or early 90s and it was called The Printer’s Pie.

The press association with its name comes from its proximity to the offices of Newcastle’s Journal and Evening Chronicle newspapers. “Utilitarian” and “No frills” might be a couple of ways to describe the experience of drinking there.

As far as I know it had been called The Printer’s Pie for decades but some marketing whizz no doubt felt it would be better to get rid of the old and go all glitzy and new. The results of this refurbishment are distinctly red top I’m sorry to say.

Out of Pudding Chare and onto Westgate Road and the Lit & Phil.

The heat of the morning soon faded away in the confines of this marvelous building. Working in an entirely random way, my reading takes in the New York Review of Books (including an interesting assesment of Patricia Highsmith's Ripley books), the proceedings of the Society for Psychical Research, original editions of poetry by e e cummings, Anne Sexton and Theodore Roethke.

After a cup of tea and an almond slice, I moved on to We Make Ships by Tom Pickard and George Melly's Don't Tell Sybil: An intimate memoir of ELT Mesens and the transcripts from the trail of William Joyce.

A couple of hours just reading. Without a computer. A rare treat!

Then it was time to wander about and stretch my legs. I headed for the rather nice iron spiral staircase you can see in the top right hand corner of this photo...





into the boardroom which also houses an impressive collection of first edition fiction and musical scores. I sat in here for half an hour reading a collection of musical criticism...

and relishing the building's filing system and its random pleasures...


Then back into the main hall...



and back to where I began...



I'd said to my pal John that one of the reasons I wanted to join was that it would get me out of the yellow room and some of my habitual methods. The poetry aside, I'm not sure I would ever have spent the best part of four hours reading such unrelated material.

It was curiously liberating to just follow one's eye and pick up a book or periodical for no other reason than it was within reach.

Marvellous!

Partisans By Proxy

Powerful Stuff
By Proxy
Partisans
Babel

Four albums into a career that has been ongoing since the mid-90s and Partisans have arguably never sounded better. Bristling with a string of jazz awards and accolades from both specialist and mainstream press, this new release consolidates their reputation for providing a brisk mixture of adventure and sharp-witted compositions.

Starting off with a knowing reference to the famously expectant opening of the Miles Davis track Bitches Brew, Phil Robson and Julian Siegel (guitar and saxophone respectively), spend much of the album entwined in an energetic dance that really produces some sparks.

Shape-shifting tunes ramp up the interest levels as inventive shades, rippling unison work and the kind of easy muscularity that lets you know there's power aplenty without ever getting showy, are spread tautly across provocative time signatures.

Every bit the equal of the frontline, Thaddeus Kelly (bass) and Gene Calderazzo (drums) have a way of working that is both supple and suitably spacious. Calderazzo's knack of keeping things close ensures that when he does open up the throttle the effects are consistently impressive.

Variations in the pace include include the acoustic interlude of the Ralph Towner-like Munch, a mournful tune whose theme cascades into dark, intriguing spaces. There's a dalliance with free-form funkateering on Partisans #1 and Thaddeus Kelly remixes a cavorting electronica-influenced rendition of Ellington's Prelude To A Kiss, complete with samples of the Duke himself and some streetwise sub-woofer mayhem.

This review first appeared here