Two years to the day since first firing up this slice of cyberspace puffery - I'm putting the Channel Mondo handbrake on as work and other daily bric-a-brac is getting in the way - I'll be pushing the stop button, rather than the delete key. So a big tip of the titfer to all the bloggers, browers, subscribers and chippers in who've had something to say or contribute over the 212 posts.
And as a last request could anyone who's got me blog-rolled, redirect the link to http://planetmondo.blogspot.com/ where all the usual PM Puffnstuff will be bubbling and babbling away - and I'll return the favour.
Step into summer with Piley and I, as we have a second bob about in our homemade podcast Podrophenia. Based around the theme of 'summer' , it features a playlist that pipes aboard Bowie, The Beatles, Ella Fitzgerald, The Divine Comedy and Soundgarden as well as the usual nattering and banter.
Apart from that I'll be giving this blog a seasonal break - possibly re-opening in September.
You can celebrate summer by downloading Podrophenia here
But sadly, there it is seeded, singing and ringing around my synapses. A tune that gatecrashed my internal playlist yesterday, (my mistake for downloading I suppose) and has bounced about like mad spacehopper or a bad penny ever since. A loony tune on a permament loop.
Damn those seventies soundtrackers for their catchy compostitions
So Piley and I have recorded our first podcast, which is now listed on the iTunes store. But, with neither of us being ITS users have got a couple of concerns about getting our collars felt for the use of music.
Clearly we're just a tiny blip in the scheme of things, but, is iTunes as a platform, high profile enough for us to be possibly spotted by any passing trade who just happen to be DMCA PRS types - and as a consequence get busted for copyright, non-clearance or licensing issues regarding tunes played in the Podcast ?
Any ideas or suggestions on how we stand with the use of music in these things would be welcome? Or would we be better off keeping it local, and only posting Podrophenia on our blogs to avoid the dreaded DMCA takedowns..
Piley and I have gone and recorded our first Podcast Podrophenia. It's an hour of chit chat and tunes based around the theme of cover versions with the pair of us muttering around about music - why not get an earful of it right here
So how's your summer been going? Mine's been spent rediscovering the joys of vinyl. Thanks to a few sipping and spinning sessions in Coops garden, I've been inspired to pick up a portable turntable with built in speaker and handy USB connection for ripping to MP3. So the singles box has been collected from the loft, the cobwebbed albums dusted off and fired up at 33 rpm. Jazz sounds fab, George Melly's Nuts has been on almost perma-play, as has Sergio Mendes & The New Brazil 77 LP. Seven inch singles are the perfect pop format, with ideas and inventiveness at every level, and colored vinyl looks better than ever..
There really is simply nothing as soothing as some garden based sitting and spinning on a summers evening. I'd forgotten how pleasing the ritual of putting on a seven inch single is - combine it with 'lucky dipping': take a box of singles and what gets pulled is what gets played, and you've got perfect evening's entertainment.
Bargains bagged have been the Les Humphries Singers - Mexico for 50p, and this little haul from Spitalfields Market - a reggae cover of How Deep Is Your Love on 7", Pete Townshend's first solo album and three latin funk comps. Thirteen nuggets the lot - 'mazing.
So what's on the shopping list..George Melly Son Of Nuts, Head Hands and Feet Warming Up The Band (featuring an early doors Albert Lee and Chas & Dave). The Faces Maybe I'm Amazed (the studio version was a single only release).
Oh - and can anyone suggest a 'violet' 7" single to complete my vinyl rainbow (didn't Squeeze have one)
Red - The Damned - Love Song Orange - UK Subs - Party In Paris Yellow - The Dickies - Banana Splits Green - UK Subs - She's Not There Blue - UK Subs - Tomorrow's Girls Indigo - ELO - Sweet Talking Woman
How many more times is Mike Oldfield planning to re-release and rework T-Bells
Do schools still do that anymore - give albums or singles as awards or rewards? I'd be decked if they did. Perhaps a voucher at a stretch. It's a much safer bet.
Intermittently at our school assemblies, some senior teacher would call to the podium, a star pupil who'd excelled at sport, come first in a competition or reached an outstanding level of somethingorother (it's telling that I've forgotten the categories, yet have total recall of the prizes). The student would bound to the stage like a spring lamb ready to be rewarded, but slump away like a crushed gump after receiving in recognition of their glowing over- achievements and reflected credit to the school - and these were actual prizes - Tubular Bells (for someone aged 12 in 1977?!?) and a few months later Matchstalk Men & Matchstalk Cats & Dogs (and not even the picture sleeve)..
Whoever came up with this stunt shot themselves in both feet with a double no-incentive whammy - lacking any appeal for either the heavy-hitting swots and sportsmen, or the fair-to-middling 'must try harders' like myself..
Where are my headphones I asked? You can track your order online - they replied See tracking order above for details - thanks for that then!
As I've probably mentioned before I'm a bugger for a bargain - charity shops (mainly books), T K Maxx (best buy to date a leather jacket reduced from £450 to £47) and of course the online goldmine that is eBay.
A couple of years back I took a bid-based punt on two polo shirts - a Fred Perry and a Penguin 'Earl' - both of which were listed with crazy cheap 'Buy Now' prices. When they finally arrived from the far east, the trademark penguin logo had more lean than the Tower of Pizza, and the Fred Perry, despite making a claim of 100% cotton, crackled like a static storm everytime it was removed.
But, I bounced back and tried a couple more bargain buys (from other 'Bayers this time, and still a third of the high street price). Perfect. Two years on and these clone-clothes are washing and wearing like a dream. Since then I've knowingly bought Converse, a Limited Edition Bathing Ape edition Casio G-Shock watch and reproduction Seditionaries t-shirts. All of which are hooky but authentic enough to be believable and and well made enough to be durable (unlike the first two fake-offs).
However, I am a low-level fuss pot about sound quality, and recently snapped up a pair of Sennheiser PX200 headphones listed on eBay at half the RRP. The delivery seemed to be taking longer than expected, so a quick peep of the sellers feedback rating revealed a history of fakery, neutral feedback and partial refunds. Whoops.
I'll live with a fake that looks and wears like the real thing, but can knock-off headphones actually simulate the sound fidelity of real deal Sennheisers or will it just be dodgy market electronics re-badged and branded as something superior?
For all the justified mumbles, grumbles and moans regarding the decline of local record shops - it's easy to overlook the disappearance of another small scale independent entertainment outlet. Video rental shops. The last of the indie vid's in our area shut up shop a couple of weeks ago, and until the closed sign was finally flipped forever it maintained all the required trappings and trimmings of a generic local video shop The 'card-full-o'-signatures' loaner system (was there ever a name for that?)
A sticker claiming '6 (or 8) copies available' on recent releases - although all 6(or 8)copies were rarely available.
Poster splattered walls and windows.
Oddbod titles with one solo signature on the rental card 'Dunstan Checks In'
Faded Copies of Donnie Brasco or Devil's Advocate for sale (£5)in the ex-rentals bin
So are there any still standing near you, and what are the names please? Or do you have any cherished memories from the eighties rental boom and beyond (£50 deposit and £1 a night hire) when video shops spread across the UK faster than swine flu.
A couple video-rewinds of mine are...
The first wave saturation of video renters and bandwagon riders. Record shops, garages even a hardware shop (yes I was a member) were lending from their extensive overnight libraries.
In the splatter-friendly pre-certification days, a film chosen as suitable viewing for a former girlfriend and myself by her parents (while they went out for an evening) was the full strength, unedited version of 'Cannibal Holocaust'!?!?
Don't panic - I'm not thinking of throwing or going to some swinging affair. Although right now somewhere, someone (possibly even, someone you know ) will be planning and prepping a home-counties communal love-in this weekend. And like any other suburban do, there must be some pre-party production and a tick list of sorts
RSVPs Drinks/nibbles to be bought (spicy must be off the menu) Rearranging furniture Tweaking the lighting Choosing the music Bowls for peanuts and car keys
So do they add some musical colour and atmos' at these low-key local get-it-togethers? Is there a carefully picked playlist of smoochy tunes perhaps titled 'Songs For Swinging Lovers'. You couldn't risk a random shuffle could you (behave - I mean on the iPod) suppose a passion killer from the collection boomed into view - Amazing Grace, Ace Of Spades or Grandad We Love You ..
On arrival is there the usual party pre-amble - "How's the job, any holidays planned" etc..and who gives the skirts-up/trousers-down signal. Surely the neighbours must rumble that something's ahoy as car-loads of unknown middle aged meddlers start pinching all the parking spaces..
It goes on everywhere you know - there's even visual evidence of local interest activties happening in my hometown and it's surrounding suburbs
Barge Gladys home to the family friendy Benfleet Yacht Club was notoriously outed in the Sunday papers some years back as a location for the am-cam movie 'Kym's Sea Shanty'.
A regular reader of this blog once lent me 'Benfleet a-Go-Go' as they named it. A sort of home made have-it-away-day filmed on the Fenchurch Street to Southend line one Sunday afternoon, a hand held not-so-steadycam film of two couples making their own in-carriage entertainment .
Even folksy Old Leigh isn't safe - the local nature reserve Two Tree Island is a magnet for dog walkers by day but doggers by night
So consider this - amongst your network of friends - work, social or virtual who would you ring as the swinger of the scene. Think of it as kinky Cluedo (Lewdo - perhaps) who is the Professor Plum or Miss Scarlet? Is that a lead pipe in his pocket or is he just pleased to see her, and what caper are they hoping to carry off in the study this weekend?
Or if you are someone hosting a communal cosy-up over the bank holiday, help yourself to this and think if it as something for the weekend. A very cheeky compilation titled 'I'm Not Feeling Myself Tonight'- described as...
"From under the counter, Jigoku's Lovely Jon and Quiet Village's Joel Martin present this very rude, XXX rated (and as the title suggests, a very tongue-in-cheek) limited edition mix. Expect to hear sleazy disco, dirty funk, glam rock and punk interspersed with snippets of dialogue from blue movies, 70's jazzmag flexidiscs, and more. Distinctly British and distinctly 70s, this filthy little party mix is brimming with low-budget sleaze - utterly explicit and rather politically incorrect."
Girlschool - Snakes Alive the sort of hairy, scary girls that beat grown men at snooker, wear 'Makin' Bacon' T-shirts and keep a spare motorbike engine in the bath.
The Donnas - An agit-girl-gang and Red-Bull-Bangles that only bother with boys for lighting their gaspers and popping bottle tops..
*Note the SG's in both vid's plank-fans cherry red and natural *
Well done, full marks and five house points to Office Pest for correctly nailing our mystery man as French Crop cop Lewis Collins.
In a past life the C15 agent, had been a bass player for Mersey band The Mojo's, whose semi-hit 'Everything's Alright' was covered by Bowie on his album Pin Ups...
Top work OP - you've won a peep at the the early non car-crashing-glass-smashing Professionals titles
For my earth pounds Lewis Collins would have made the perfect follow on Bond from Roger Moore. An approach was made by the Bond production team - but....
"It would be nice to get back to the original Bond, not the character created by Sean Connery - but the one from the books. He's not over-handsome, over-tall. He's about my age and has got my attitudes... I was in Cubby Broccoli's office for five minutes, but it was really over for me in seconds. I have heard since that he doesn't like me. That's unfair. He's expecting another Connery to walk through the door and there are few of them around. I think he's really shut the door on me. He found me too aggressive. I knew it all -- that kind of attitude. Two or three years ago that would be the case, purely because I was nervous and defensive. I felt they were playing the producer bit with fat cigars. When someone walks into their office for the most popular film job in the world, a little actor is bound to put on a few airs. If Cubby couldn't see I was being self-protective I don't have faith in his judgment."
He's even got a Myspace site you know.. Lewis Collins
EODM - Almost everything you want from a Rock Band: a gallery of tattoos, quality vintage kit and the sort of heavy-level riffing that could flatten tanks..
Not many bands can crack the rock-o-nundrum of making squealy synths and screaming guitars work together. Electric Six can.
What's a'popping within this medley of madness? If the idea of a bespoke title theme for an Italian airing of George & Mildred (which surely should have been titled Giorgio & Moroder) isn't brain scrambling enough - consider these points...
Was the Italian G & M a straight export version just refitted with dandy new theme?
Or more jarringly perhaps, reworked as a continental adaptation?
And are those two pictured (Abba meets Borat) the actors or singers?
How did the 'composers' get away reformatting 10CC's Dreadlock Holiday into this number without getting walloped?
Well, that’s my lot for now and the holiday handbrake is officially ‘on’, as I'm heading north for a few days break next week. One of the CDs soundtracking the trip is a homemade comp ‘Last Of The Winter Mixtures’ - posted as part of the occasional Lazy Sunday series that appear here.
LOTWM is a lightly chilled selection with a slight (unintentional) northern theme throughout.If you fancy anymore of my Mondo Mixes they’re available here, or via my Facebook photo albums - apart from that I’ll leave you with a blast from my favourite new band Evolved Monkey.
So have a tip top Easter and I’ll be back soon(ish)
PS - by coincidence, guess who made The Archers Forum this week (I'm mentioned in message 30)
Roy Budd - Carter Takes A Train John Martyn - Smiling Stranger Yves Montand - Pour Faire le Portrait d´un Oiseau Serge Gainsbourg - Melody Minnie Riperton - Take A Little Trip Dennis Hoppers Choppers - Ballad Of Fu Manchu and The Red Bride Harsh Reality - How Do You Feel Money Mark - Cry Gather Round Children - Yoko In Idaho (Sufjan Stevens and Beatles mashup) The Beatles - Flying Stina Nordenstam - On Falling Air - Soldissimo Ian Brown - F.E.A.R Easy All Stars - Karma Police Baltic Fleet - 48 Hour Drive (Boston) Boards Of Canada - Dayvan Cowboy Soundhog - The Doves Are Mine
I’m heading north to Yorkshire for a few days after Easter (between Holmfirth and Huddersfield). During my Civil Service days I regularly buzzed through all parts northern, popping into hotspots and hubs like the Customs Houses or VAT Sub-Offices of Crewe, Blackburn and Wigan. Trips that came with the added bonus of a creative 'travel and subbies' system, - a great way to squeeze out a few extra earth pounds towards bulking up that budding CD collection.
But that was a million years ago, and I haven’t been up north since '97 when we camped in Castleton and had a spot of bother with mad Manchester axeman (yes, really) – I’ve found out since Castleon was the location for this Italian Splatter Pic’ – If only I’d known before.
I’ve got four days and open agenda apart from a visit to Huddersfield to see the site of the Sex Pistols final UK gig in '77 (was Ivanhoe’s Nightclub- is now a Lidls). And a stop off on the way up to have a real Bakewall pudding (you can’t call them ‘tarts ‘in Bakewell). So, any dos, don’ts or sites to see while doing my great north run would be massively appreciated…
PS Holmfirth and Haworth are probably on the cards too…
I changed ISPs last week - and during the crossover, had one day without any Interweb connectivity at home. I say one day, actually it was just one evening. But, for that handful of hours I don't think I've ever felt so cut-off, disconnected and cold turkey-ish. Unbelievable.
Holidays, sick leave etc... you factor in days away from the mainframe. Getting unexpectedly dropped is like Superman being stripped of his powers. No email, music downloads, bidding, browsing or blogging.
TV I can take or leave (when I take, I generally see why I leave). Radio I'll dip and dunk now and again. But the Internet is surely the most addictive of all plug-in-drugs, and so locked and loaded into your lifestyle - it's almost impossible to be without.
Every area of employment must have it's own career related horror stories. You know, the sort of niche/job specific, urban myths, late night legends or even occasionally true tales that are related and reheated with shifty whispers and knowing nods.
In a former life I was a low-level civil servant working in the Train-The-Trainers department of Customs and Excise, where most of the senior staff, trainers or managers had served some sort of stretch in The Field being based at ports, airports or the Investigations Division (C&E's equivalent of The Sweeney) keeping a stealthy eye out for smugglers, stuffers and swallowers. A few of the tales told at leaving dos or seasonal drink-ups included...
A manager I worked under, who had previously been based at Dover (in the pre H & S 80s) was regularly required to carry out strip searches on any pulled-in suspects. His cut-off point came at lifting their 'old fella' with a ruler. If he hadn't found anything by then - they could keep it.
Part of the training for new field staff included role-play strip searches on volunteers (usually the same over-fifties volunteers everytime). I say role play but the searchees were completely starkers during the searches, with one of the ladies stow-it-away specialisms including tucking a pencil under the folds of her heavyset chest, where it usually stayed undiscovered everytime.
Now this one may be a shaggy dog story, but, I only heard it once while at Customs, and have never heard variations or re-tellings of it since - so you never know.
Medics became a legal requirement at strip searches after an incident where, a thread was spotted trailing party popper style from a suspects Parsons Nose. The over-zealous Customs Officer taking it as the sure-fire sign of a 'stuffer' grabbed the cotton whipping it out with the force of someone starting an outboard motor. The suspect collapsed concertina-style as the thread had been the tail end of internal stitches..
I could add intestines being sucked into aeroplane loos, clear perspex toilets to collect swallowers deposits, an overpowering lack of personal hygiene employed by stuffers to put people off the scent - literally. But perhaps I'll save those treats for next time..
There really is no other street in London quite like King's Road, it's an area so saturated with rock royalty, drama queens, designers and sites of special pop-culture interest, that you're never more than a few meters shy of some heavy-hitting historical location. I don't think it's an over-exaggeration to suggest that no other post code has shaped what we watch, wear, listen to and laugh at quite like SW3. You may not have been to King's Road, but the offspring and influences from this spawning ground of sounds and styles - will have stealthily woven it's way into your life somehow.
With a one way walk (of 1.4 miles) from Sloane Square to Edith Grove. It's possible to complete a tick-list of London undergrounders and embryonic icons including :Angry Young Men, Beatles, Bolan, Dracula, Droogs, Feminists, It Girls, proto-punks, Pythons, Rocky Horror, Stones and Ziggy Stardust.
So, starting from Sloane Square then...
The Royal Court Theatre John Osbourne's Look Back In Anger premiered at the RCT in 1956, the success of the play payrolled the production of Saturday Night Saturday Morning movie, which in turn, kick-started the 'Kitchen Sink' genre. Almost ten years on David Frost spotted Michael Palin and Terry Jones, starring in a '65 Oxford Revue and invited them to join the writing team for The Frost Report, a team that included Graham Chapman, John Cleese and Eric Idle. And in 1973The Rocky Horror Show made it's flouncy debut.
138a King's Road The site of Mary Quant's first boutique 'Bazaar' - which opened in 1955. Now a West Cornwall Pasty shop
A few doors up, at 152 you'll find The Pheasantry. A rat-run of shabby flats in the mid-to-late sixties, but home to Germaine Greer, Clive James, Eric Clapton and Martin Sharp (designer of Disraeli Gears and Oz Magazine) - A location, that a few decades before had been the Russian Dancing Academy - attended bya young Dame Margot Fonteyn Now a Pizza Express
Just across the road at 49King's Road once stood The Chelsea Drugstore. Referenced in the Stones song You Can't Always Get What You Want, and used for a several interiors in Stanley Kubrick's Clockwork Orange. Now a McDonalds
Staying on the south side, a short hop takes you to number 85 , former home of The Great Gear Market. A dingy network of Leather Shops (the Boys Town type), Antenna hairdressers (the birthplace of extensions), Rusty Egan's Record Cage, Tik and Tok's clothing shop.. an eighties hang-out for all alt.types Now a Marks and Spencer
If you're feeling peckish, why not pop in to Picasso's at 127 for a bite? It's one of London's endangered species - an original fifties coffee bar, that's not been Starbucked. Yet.
Flood Street is next on the left, and Chelsea Manor Studios at 1 - 11, the site of the Sgt. Pepper's photo-shoot .
One more Beatles location to come Fabs fan's
153, now Ad-Hoc, but used to be punk-turned-eighties favourite BOY. Head west along King's Road and you'll soon come to Oakley Street - I would recommend looping south to Cheyne Walk and ticking off...
Oakley Street 89 - Bowies seventies house of residence 87 - Lady Wilde, mother of Oscar Wilde. And Later, George Best
Cheyne Walk 48 - Mick Jagger's house '68-75 27 - Bram Stoker 3 - Keith Richards until '78
Back on King's Road, keep heading west and take a left into Old Church Street looking for 46a and Sound Techniques Studios - it's no longer used for recording, but while active produced a pitch perfect pedigree of - Floyd's 'Syd' period singles, and classic albums like : Nick Drake - Five Leaves Left, Bryter Later, John Martyn - Bless The Weather, Solid Air, Fairport -Liege and Leaf.
A jump to the north side of the street takes you to The Vale, and another The Beatles site - Robert Whitakers Studio at 1A being the site of the 'butcher' sleeve photo shoot..
Stay on this side for 380, where in the seventies Marc Bolan was a regular at Alkasura (closed long ago) for most of his swishy bits and satin jackets..
Marc Bolan in his Alkasura jacket
Round the bend, and into the World's End stretch of the street. Where nestling next to the Chelsea Conservative Club, like a neighbour from a hell, is 430 King's Road - the birthing pool of Punk. McLaren and Westwood moved in 1972, setting up shop as Let It Rock and selling fifties collectables and creepers to Teddy Boys. But it was the shops refitting and reformatting as SEX that pulled punk's earliest groovers and shakers - the art-school Bowie/Roxy crowd and safety pinned estate urchins - into it's orbit of Hate-Couture Still Vivienne Westwood - Hurrah!
Finally the sixties 'scene' shop Granny Takes A Trip was sited at 488, and just around the corner you'll findtheyoung Rolling Stones notoriously sqalid lodgings at 102 Edith Grove.
I could cram in James Bond's unamed square, Duke Ellington's earliest recordings, Judy Garland's death, George Melly and Quentin Crisp, The Killing of Sister Georgie, Don Letts and Acme Attractions, The Who, John Barry, Christopher Lee, Peter Cushing, Mozart, James Whistler, Edith Sitwell and the invention of cotton but, perhaps I'll save that lot for later..
Could these be the most explosive dance sequences ever filmed? Two routines of rug-cutting so heavy-level, high-flying, fast and furious it's like Jackie Chan goes Cha-cha-cha.. However, if you know of a moment with more bounce-per-ounce in some other way - please feel free to cut in with a gentleman's excuse me
Be warned - you may suffer from a touch of motion sickness after the one minute mark
Partly because of it's inclusiveness - the way it's an open forum to phone in, get involved and become an on air have-a-go-hero - although I never understand the dreary Deidre and constipated callers that have to be prodded and pocked to draw out a weary 'yes' or 'no' - I was on a couple of weekends back, growling about dangerous dogs and have previous form for jabberings about my Starsky trainers and seventies fashions..
However the real highlight is a Sunday morning show 'The BBC Essex Years'. A show that indulges the listener with a full two hour rundown of the top twenty from one random year - padded with ad's and local news from the time. The fifties and sixties can lean towards a lumpy listen, but the seventies are solid gold - and somewhere I've picked up on these pieces of pure pop magic - Sail On Sailor, T.S.O.P and this peachy treat from last Sunday's 1972 show....
In case you're interested that full February 15th chart rundown looked like this - a cross-section of quality pop, that proves they really don't make 'em like they used to.... 01 - Chicory Tip - Son Of My Father 02 - T.Rex - Telegram Sam 03 - The Chi-Lites - Have You Seen Her 04 - Slade - Look Wot You Dun 05 - Neil Reid - Mother Of Mine 06 - Don McLean - American Pie 07 - The New Seekers - I'd Like To Teach The World To Sing (In Perfect Harmony) 08- Sonny And Cher - All I Ever Need Is You 09 - Fortunes - Storm In A Teacup 10 - Al Green - Let's Stay Together 11 - America - Horse With No Name 12 - Greyhound - Moon River 13 - Badfinger - Day After Day 14 - Melanie - Brand New Key 15 - Bread - Baby I'm A Want You 16 - Nilsson - Without You 17 - The Bee Gees - My World 18 - Sly And The Family Stone - Family Affair 19 - Donnie Elbert - Where Did Our Love Go 20 - Stevie Wonder - If You Really Love Me
What with the 'V' word just around the tomorrow's corner, a seasonal slinky soother could be just what the Écouter ordered. And there's none more slinky and soothing than a splash of Serge Gainsbourg. I don't understand a single syllable of his smokily mumbled mutterings (with the exception of a unexpectedly jarring - "MERDE!"). Maybe he's reading from a Ready Reckoner, the Periodical Tables or selected highlights from the Highway Code - but, whatever he's on about, it's getting him all smoochy doo, and Pepe Le Pew.
Or perhaps, it could be, that almost anything said in French is given the heated underglow of suggestion and smoulder .
As a note en bas de page Mrs PM once claimed, given the choice between Sasha Distel and Serge she'd go for Gainsbourg !
*Makes theatrical gulp, and arm wrestles with what this says about self*
Shamelessly apeing from Piley's recent post about band-names-adapted-for-shop-names..
Toilet rolls and tissues - Bums & Noses punk delicatessen - Ham 69 Goth Japanese Restaurant - Sushi and The Banshees
I thought I'd give it a wallop myself by reformatting song titles into shops.
Stannah Stairlift Installations - Chairway To Heaven Tanning Salon - Hey Mr Tangerine Man Camping Supplies - Anoraky In The UK Building Repairs - Brick Up The Pieces Fish and Chips - Cod Only Knows
John Martyn's music was our soundtrack to so many good times - summer sipping in the garden, late night drinks, holidays, our wedding (May You Never) and honeymoon (Bless The Weather) and my inspiration for buying a Martin acoustic. Five years on from discovering John Martyn through Solid Air, an album of instant simpatico and like discovering a long lost relative, I'm still getting my fingers in a reef knot trying to stumble and fumble through May You Never, it wasn't always this way though
I was a Johnny come lately to Johnny Too Bad. Beardy faced acoustic based singer song writers had little appeal and minimal interest for me. John martyn was the bloke who wrote 'May You Never' on Clapton's deeply dreary album 'Slowhand', and one of the performers I skipped through on the marvelous Old Grey Whistle Test DVDs.
I was always thought Nick Drake would be my token folky concession. So I bought all the albums, played all the albums, but found him a bit like Scandinavia - isolated , icy, prone to extended periods of darkness - and not some where I wanted to spend much time.
Ironically it was a song about Nick Drake 'Solid Air' that drew me into the world of John Martyn. This was a much broader musical geography, the folky trappings of 'Over The Hill', the smoky trimmings of 'Don't Want To Know' gave it the weight and warmth of a late night Jazz club or intimate acoustic performance. All perfectly underpinned by Danny Thompson's gliding bass lines, and the echoplex reverb adding an almost dubbish depth to the folk funk of 'Dreams By The Sea'.
Solid Air the album is as rich, plummy and fruity as a bottle of vintage red wine, each note plucked drops glossily from the guitar, and leaks from the speakers on all tracks but particularly on the understated eroticism of 'Go Down Easy' and gentle lullaby of 'May You Never'.
May you never lay your head down Without a hand to hold May you never make your bed out in the cold.
Davey Graham, Bert jansch and Nick Drake are are all genius acoustic technicians, but none of them have John Martyn's intuitive touch and feel for stroking out the full flavour of a song.
I still don't have much interest in beardy-faced acoustic-based singer song writers - but 'Solid Air', John Martyn (the heavyweight Marlon Brando to Nick Drake's whispy James Dean) and his 70s albums are a joy. I don't skip John Martyn any more instead I sit and study his tone and technique.
So this weekend I'll be raising a glass and spinning some tunes like these to John Martyn another legend lost.
'May You Never'.
It may be morose, but that's the mood of the moment - I'm planning to have Small Hours as my funeral music...
JOhn Martyn : September 11th 1948 - January 29th 2009
I quite enjoy most eighties Rock Monsters (but Poodle Bands - Nah!), and for a while in the middle of the metal-mad-eighties, was a strictly happy amateur gigging guitarist (there's more on that here and here)..
But towards the tail end of that decade, Rock (read:M.E.T.A.L) went to College, and bands like Kings X, Masters of Reality and Tad were rockers just as comfy browsing in a bookshop as boozing in bar, and swerved away from Meringue Mullets of Metal
Top of the form were The Pursuit Of Happiness who triple distilled Aimee Mann, Andy Partridge and Axel Rose into intelli-metal tunes, with more hooks than a velcro factory - and what's not to like about that...
The Pursuit of Happiness - I'm an Adult Now
The Pursuit of Happiness - Hard To Laugh
There's another TPOH track here if you fancy one more...
