Two Other Ex- Bus Conductors


We will change the world. It broke my heart to learn that John & Margaret's son alan was shot during a peaceful demonstation. It was a rubber bullet & he survives to fight another day. The whole world is watching but no-one is really doing anything about it. God bless.

Tales from the far north

Imagine the situation. You have decided to get away from it all & have a quiet escape from a pressurised lifestyle out on the Cairngorms & then this old weird guy is playing mad, mad music @ crazy volumes. One day it is some obscure jazz rock, that he tells you his totally obsessed librarian friend had transferred from tape to cd in a long labour of love, then the next day he is playing Kevin Coynes ‘ Margery Razorblade’, all about his experiences as a psychiatric nurse in mental wards. To top it all he is screaming some unbelievable story about how him, his wife & his friend went along to Paisley Art Centre to see Kevin Coyne & got lost.

The next time you pass by, he has some lost rare 60s psychedelia blaring & the lyrics are Old Testament dirges sung off - key by someone, who was in Afghanistan in 1965? Can you believe anything this old man tells you?

Later he is muttering about how he & his librarian friend used to be Bus Conductors, (whatever that might have been?) & how they also worked in a sewing machine factory?

You start to consider your own lifestyle and realise that you are glad you have adopted this sensible attitude to your health. These children of that 60s culture are deeply scarred & damaged. The strangest thing is that it doesn’t appear to bother them. They seem happy enough, lost in their thoughts & dreams of some Utopian world, where wealth seemed unimportant & where everyone had time to talk with each other & respect each other as an equal. They are all well – read, opinionated & oddly totally radical in the way that only children of Red Clydesiders can be.

Never ever ever let your children mess with your hair:

Drifting


I was having one of those eno moments as I listened to some post rock or Finnish psychedelia with the windows open & the street sounds, birds, hovermowers cut in & out. I do listen to a lot of ‘soundwalks’ these days as well as producing my own.

There is so much sound around us especially during the Spring/Summer months that you only hear, when using a microphone & a pair of headphones and focus-in on your audio environment.

I remember lying on my back during those endless summers of youth, eyes closed absorbing the natural sounds around me. Where did that time go: it was only yesterday. Walking the Kilpatrick Hills even after school, catching trout with my bare hands, reading ‘Lord of the Rings’ in 1969 on these hills after hearing Tyrannosaurus Rex & their Tolkeinesque lyrics on the John Peel show.

Thinking about the time I was in a hospital bed in London in another eno moment, suffering from Hep B. (not the hep c for lightweights, that the junkie cons pick up!) & I had some money left after travelling about in India/Nepal & asked a male nurse to pick up some cassettes for me….Santana’s Caravanserai still takes me right there, right now.

It is appropriate that my favourite singer for the last 40 years has a new cd entitled ‘Drifting’ . Scott Walker like the Blue Nile knows that a 10 year gap between albums is ok.

Maybe drifting is all we ever achieve in this life. I personally accept this as a lifestyle choice.
Conrad Schnitzler ex-Tangerine Dream, ex-Kluster seems content to drift in last month’s ‘Wire’ magazine interview, taking care of his garden.

Paul Simon’s new album ‘Surprise’ is just that. What a disappointment! However, I did think of his lyric……..there is a moment: a chip in time’ apologies if I misquoted, but saying goodbye to Clare today, although it fills me with sadness, I am happy that we shared this time. I choose to see our team of professionals in the library like the John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers of the 60s so many great people passing through & moving on. This is getting too heavy man………but then life is like that (am I getting too old), our lives drift they sometimes touch, but then they split apart & we are gone.

Moyshe McStiff & the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart


It just gnaws away at you all the time. If you are a compulsive cd buyer like myself, you cannot leave it alone. My excuse is that I saw it on vinyl 35 years ago and should have bought it then even although, I would not have had the money. I just had to go back to Lost in Music (actually my son went for me) & buy that copy of that classic Clive Palmer album by his band COB. This had to be done to avoid that neverending stress & turmoil.

10, 000 Things to do if I had the Time

1. Make a list
2. Make another list
3. Make a list of lists
4. Make a note of where my lists are
5. Index the lists
6. Spend more time with my family (If they are on any of the above lists!)
7. Transfer all my experimental psychedelic mixtapes to cd to keep my Neath fanbase happy
8. Transfer all my own recordings from minidisk to cd
9. Find those obscure 60s lps that shook my tree

Yesterday I woke up sucking on lemons

What is this madness that engulfs us? Climbing up a ladder to reach the coffee jar before I am awake enough to climb up a ladder to reach the coffee jar before I am awake enough to climb up a ladder to reach the coffee jar before I am awake enough to….

Listening to Radiohead acoustic recordings at 7.00 a.m. on a Saturday, having quality time with my son before he goes off to work. How many 52 year olds would do this Thom Yorke? Darius is just about to start his shift for today building my neighbour’s extension. Carpentry is such a fabulous gift.

Returned to fitba after such a long layoff with such a nambie- pambie injury. Scored a hat trick that henrik would be proud of. Kenny’s on his hunkers. Shang-a-lang has the lassies in training for this years’ 10k. Is that another year gone? Passing so quickly now.

Mr Beloushi is back from Oman but worried about his ability to move from Further to Higher Education. I have a stack of Post Rock stuff to go to Deko.

The Happy Highlanders are off to Perth to see Jackie Leven (again!).

The sun is out at last, so its falling asleep in the garden time for me again. Is this the highlight of the year now for me at my age? Well actually yes. Oh & lets not forget that Channel 5 has the cricket rights for the next 4 years. Nice one mate.

Sometimes, I listen to more comfortable music: like the stuff above or (at last I found it!) East of Eden's first lp: Mercator Projected. Trouble is while I was in Lost in Music, I also saw the C.O.B. cd Moyshe McStiff & the Tartan Lancers of the Sacred Heart & Comus' s first 2 lps on one cd. I could go on & on...............

I Woke Up Laughing........

Pet Hates: People who talk during gigs

One of the happy highlanders is often on a short fuse now that he is well into his twilight years. Recently, he bit the bullet & attended a Triptych event in Aberdeen i.e. King Creosote, Akron Family, Adem etc…..I suspect he knew that he was running a risk going to the Lemon Tree as it might have been full of youngsters.

However, despite him being his usual subtle self & making increasingly louder comments to his wife,(never fearing the size of the well-fed youth), this event was spoiled for him because of ignorant students who attend events & chat, only to state that they had been there!

I must admit this is one of my own pet hates. I don’t know why it happens now. It never used to occur. Too much money? People go to gigs for the background ambience?? Who knows?

This behaviour stopped me attending the Ferry in Glasgow. I have been told by Keith that the Orange Moor at the top of Byres Road is the same. Clare says that she went to the Arches recently to hear a really quiet singer songwriter & there they were again the chattering clinking classes.

If you are not there to see the artist please stay at home mate or go to a real pub!

In Search for Lost Psychedelia

The beauty of this current download culture is that those stupid mistakes you made as a teenager, when bread was in short supply, can be rectified, (almost).

I did not sell much of my valuable vinyl collection, but I do regret selling: tontos expanding headband/brian auger/nice- thoughts of emerlist davjack.

I recently got a copy of the latter & its still sounds superb (to these 52 year old ears).

I have also managed to acquire most of the Tonto tracks & a range of Brian Auger tracks. The Tontos Expanding Headband were so far ahead of the game & produced that magnificent album. I couldn’t understand why it was so difficult to track down until I realised that Stevie Wonder had been so smart that he brought Malcolm Cecil & the other part of the duo on board & must have gave them such a lucrative contract that their own output stagnated & died. Stevie was to reap the reward for this as the albums that followed were so innovative.

Anyway all I need now is the time left to catch up on listening to this wealth of rare Mexican, Japanese or Brazilian psychedelia that I have now amassed. Why there is so much Brazilian psychedelia available is totally beyond my ken?

Jazz rock or jazz funk fusion?

Back after a dead week of winter vomiting, (in spring?). Picked up Billy Cobham best on cassette from the happy highlanders & it is now transferred to cd copy. I had forgotten how great a lot of that jazz rock fusion stuff was. It all began for me quite early with Peel playing that first Chicago Transit Authority double gatefold lp to death. I have since bought about 3 copies of it on vinyl/cd. He also complimented this lp with the first Blood, Sweat & Tears album. These have remained 2 of my favourite albums to this day.

Later maybe it was the times we lived in, but it all got so cosmic. I remember seeing John McLaughlin, a firm fixture under my own, or happy highlander no. 1’s arms, at greens playhouse and being totally blown away. Can it ever get any better than this? Well yes. I am sure my friend and myself will always have strong feelings about this period & we have exchanged recordings of this era with knowing glances that indicate no need for words. Pure quality.

Maybe this concentration on the jazz rock output meant we missed the jazz funk period. These London soul boys who make my listening these days like Gilles Peterson were well up on the jazz funk bizness. I am catching up now on a retrospective trip.

Oh in case I forget, thanks for the new Donald Fagen. Steely Dan took all that jazz & made some of the sweetest funky jazz rock in their lifetime & it still sound so good today.