'Time Keeps Slipping into the Future’.

Wearing long black Civil Defence wartime greatcoats & carrying black umbrellas with steel points that could double as weapons (a la John Steed in ‘The Avengers’ or Alex in ‘Clockwork Orange’, that we saw before it got banned in cinemas).

Listening to MC5 ‘Kick out the Jams’: our first exposure to what a live concert should sound like on vinyl & Procul Harum’s ‘Salty Dog’ & the Doors first 2 lps on Grundig 4-track open reel recorders: the i-pod of its day. Our whole life lay before us unmapped. We could do anything go anywhere & some of us did…. With bells on!

There was a constant soundtrack to our lives & various places we woke up in. Hearing the songs immediately triggers memories of places & happy times. Weekends at Noblestone, Bonhill listening to Sly & Family Stone: Belmont St, Glasgow & Nilsson ‘Son of Schmilsson’ & ‘The Point’ & the Beach Boys ‘Holland’. Round the corner on Maryhill Road at the Pacetta’s place with the endless Grateful Dead lps. My bit under the Grosvenor with the Kevin Ayers, Roy Harper & Soft Machine & early morning visitors you didn’t expect.

Muswell Hill, London & Steely Dan in the back garden on those endless summer days. St Georges Hospital lying in bed with hep b & Mahdu robbing me tapes & books & Santana’s ‘Caravanserai’ always playing. Mahdu not named Mahdu then, but struggling to keep it together disappearing for hours in the toilet in a worse state than I was & he came to visit me. Chasing him out of his squat in Maida Vale. This was the second time I chased him out of London & home for his health.

What a time we had & then you wake up one morning & look in the mirror & see a fat, grey haired old man & you think where did the time go? This time last year we went to Mull & Iona for the first time. It seems like it was only a couple of months ago, but it was a year ago. ‘Time Keeps Slipping into the Future’.

Librarians Love Lists


As summer slips away, I have fond memories, to keep me going over winter, of lying in my hammock listening to this Radio 1 'One World' special on the 'new folk' movement


Monday 5 JuneFolk Tales presented by Huw Stephens


01.00 Devendra Banhart - 'Hey Mama Wolf'
Vashti Bunyan Vashti Bunyan - 'Diamond Day'
Vashti Bunyan - 'Feet of Clay' (In session at Maida Vale)
Devendra Banhart & Vashti Bunyan - 'Rejoicing in the Hands'
Joanna Newsom - 'Bridges & Balloons'
David Berman from the Silver Jews Silver Jews - 'Room Games & Diamond Rain'
Nils Okland - 'Biberslatt'
Jolie Holland Daniel Johnston - 'Walking the Cow'
Jolie Holland - 'Ghostly Girl'
Tom Waits Tom Waits - 'How's It Going to End'
Vetiver - 'Amerilie '
Microphones - 'The Glow '
Linda Perhacs Linda Perhacs - 'Parallelograms' (1st play in the world)
Sierra Cassady from Coco Rosie Coco Rosie - 'Noah's Ark'
Bonnie Prince Billy - 'Careless Love'

02.00 Jana Hunter Jana Hunter - 'Crystal Lariat'
Alison Cotton from Left Outsides
Left Outsides - 'Leaving the Frozen Butterflies Behind'
Wayne Coyne from the Flaming Lips
The Flaming Lips - 'Evil Will Prevail'
Allison Brice from The Eighteenth Day of May
The Eighteenth Day of May - 'Cold Early Morning'
Josephine Foster - 'Who Will Feel Bitter At The Day's End?'
Adem Adem - 'Statued'
Adem mix :
Scatter - 'My Son David'
Tim Buckley - 'Song for the Siren'
Shirley Collins - 'Dabbling the Dew'
King Creosote - 'Circle of My Demise'
Serafina - 'Ground in a Council Flat'

Getting Old

Am I embarrassed or proud that the Stones are still strutting their stuff in their 60s? Personally, I believe they should have folded after their best album: ‘Their Satanic Majesties’ an album I still love deeply to this day.

However as Loudon Wainwright approaches 60 this month, we can see he is still producing great material. His offspring are doing ok, too. Reminds me of Blood, Sweat & Tears – ‘Child is the Father to the Man’. If anything he is improving with age. Yesterday, I met a lifelong friend who has only 1 year to live, he is only a year older than me & we were constant companions during those heady days of the late 60s/ early 70s. I am still in shock.

I have lost so many friends over the years, but it is important to focus on the new friends you make over this time.

These last few days have been strange. I have taken ages to write this as we have been so incredibly busy at work. I have worked in difficult situations before, e.g. while Saddam was bombing my library with Scud missiles & I have upset double murderers during my working days within libraries, but nothing can scare me like the wrath of Librarians who have days & days of solid data input into a catalogue, that should have appeared automatically.I can feel the death threats mounting. However, I am optimistic & hopeful that the dark days are behind us & we can move on.

Also I am trying to finish work in the garden between heavy showers. Its frustrating: charging up the drill only to find it impossible to get out due to the torri tential rain.

If 6 was 9: everybody’s dying: Arthur Lee. Should have went to see him over the past 2 years, when he was touring. Thought he would go on forever like all my companions from childhood. He has left a great body of work, mind you for the past week, I don’t think I have played any music after 1967: been listening to the Seeds, Standells, Electric Prunes, Chocolate Watch Band, Strawberry Alarm Clock & my current favourite: Southwest F.O.B. – ‘Smell of Incense’. I don’t know much about the latter, except that I love it. Am I getting so old that I am listening to this old music or is it because it sounds so fresh today?

Anyway, I found another corner of the world to ‘hang out’. This is where you can find other like minded oddities like Professor Roger Ruskin Spear ex- Bonzo Dogs (I actually saw him live in Greens Playhouse a hundred years ago!). It has taken me forever to discover the ‘Freak Zone’ on bbc radio 6. I cannot remember (old age) when it broadcasts in ‘real time’ (whatever that is) I will post the website address later. Looking at the recent playlists this is my music collection & this is what I would play in a 3 hour slot.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/6music/shows/freakzone/

They Did It To Jesus, They Do It To the Lebanese & They Are Doing It to Us Too

The Herald
MARTIN WILLIAMS
August 07 2006

TWO Scottish human rights activists were injured after being hit by a plastic bullet and debris from a stun grenade fired by the Israeli army during a demonstration on the West Bank.
Margaret , 52, suffered severe bruising after being struck in the back by a plastic bullet while she was marching with hundreds of people in the village of Billin in memory of more than 1000 people who have been killed in Gaza and Lebanon.

She said that she and her husband, John, were deliberately targeted.
John, 53, with whom she formed the Glasgow Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, suffered facial injuries after a stun grenade exploded at his feet, causing him to be deafened in one ear.
These grenades create a noise of up to 160 decibels and are used in crowd control.
The couple are in the area to provide humanitarian aid to children and teenagers in refugee camps in Palestine.

They raise money from their home in Bishopbriggs and travel to Palestine three to four times each year to deliver toys.
They also work to raise public awareness about the human rights situation in the West Bank and Gaza.

Mr and Mrs Pacetta said they had put up a poster in the West Bank village bearing the message, "Stop the Bombing of Lebanon and Gaza – Over 1000 Dead", and were walking away when the army began firing tear gas canisters, concussion grenades and potentially lethal rubber coated bullets.

Speaking from the West Bank, Mrs P, a former bank secretary, said she was struck as she and her husband were heading back to their flat.
"We turned our backs and as we walked away the Israeli army just started firing on us. We were deliberately targeted and they fired at our backs. My husband was holding his face and as some of the Palestinians were asking if he was okay and I felt this thud at my back. It was extremely painful.

"I knew it was a bullet because I could hear them. I was just hoping it was not real bullets. The fact we were walking away and they were still firing was so awful.
"We were definitely and deliberately targeted as internationals. This is a clear violation of human rights and international law."
Her husband said there was "no justification" for the army response.
"If you are in a peaceful demonstration with Israeli peace activists and people from all over the world, you would expect it was safe to go there. You don't expect what they call a civilised army to open fire at peaceful, non-violent demonstrators who are walking away.

"I can understand if we were throwing rocks or something, but all we did was put a poster up and walk away and they started to fire at us."

Last Great Wilderness

Managed to catch up with this movie on tv this weekend. I have been looking for it since I knew the Pastels had done the soundtrack. I had heard most of the music already. I had no concept of a plot but then this was not a problem, as I don’t think that the director had one either.

It meandered through the most beautiful country in the world at its harshest, but some would say most picturesque, time. If anyone knows what the film was about, please send a comment.

David Hayman had a typical menacing role, but eventually he had to wear a dress as did Bill Wells. This may be difficult to imagine, it was odd to see. Good to see the Pastels in a movie. Not many librarians make it to the big screen. I have a distant memory of being an extra in a Bollywood epic during the early 70s, but this may have been a hallucination, they were strange days indeed.

By the way apart from continuously playing Koop' s Waltz for Koop cd, I have been on a sort of mahavishnu trip. I tell you 'Inner Mountain Flame' followed by ' Between Nothingness & Eternity' helps blow the cobwebs away as I type this @ 6.30 a.m Saturday.

Can Blue Men Sign the Whites



Recent BBC 4 documentaries reminded me of how great the Bonzo Dogs really were. I have almost worn out vinyl copies of ‘Donut in Granny’s Greenhouse’, ‘Keynsham’ & ‘Gorilla’.

The title of this post was their tongue – in - cheek response to the 1960s UK blues boom.

Liverpool Scene is another of my favourite bands of this period & they also satirised this movement with, ‘I’ve got thos Fleetwood Mac, Chicken Shack, don’t go back, John Mayall, cant fail, blues’. I have lucid memories of that time & listening back to those albums I am amazed, how much they have stood the test of time & how fresh they sound. Other prime examples, would be Savoy Brown, whose song ‘Bamboo Grove’ was in my cd player they other day & lets not forget the Groundhogs, whose first lp was ‘Blues Obituary’ & who’s lead guitarist, Tony (T.S.) Mc Phee appeared on many of Mike Vernon’s Blue Horizon labels compilation. The original Fleetwood Mac & Chicken Shack did the same. Incidently, there has been a whole raft of these Blue Horizon albums available for download on other blogs.

It is difficult now to imagine how big a movement this was & how great an impact it had on other styles of music, e.g. jazz & folk bands…e.g. Alexis Korner (R.I.P.), John Mayall & Graham Bond. The members of these latter groups were to go on & push the boundaries with the next stage of development: psychedelia or progressive music as we used to call it back in the day…………e.g. Cream, Ten Years After, Family, Edgar Broughton Band, Pretty Things, Traffic, Trees, Principal Edwards Magic Theatre, Occasional Word….etc. Many of these bands began by playing R & B, but soon they got caught up in the lifestyle & tripped the light fantastic. Some went out there too far & never came back………..Syd Barrett (R.I.P.), Graham Bond….etc..

For me at this stage of my life, I am constantly re-discovering wonderful sounds from that period………..at the moment it is Comus………….superb, fresh, exciting………when they came out they were lost amid so much terrific material………..now that I am getting a chance to hear them…………the wait was well worthwhile……..

DRONE TO DRIFT

Note to self: must listen to more Scott Walker & David Sylvian. Although in truth, I have listened to both recently. I finally got Scott's 'Climate of the Hunter' on cd & his new album 'Drift'.

However what I have really been listening to & enjoying is Nine Horses (David Sylvian) song 'The Librarian' for two very obvious reasons. Here is the superb lyrics:


The Librarian


Keep you head down Keep you head down While they’re firing low You’re too young child To know the difference
Oh my pretty Oh my sweet girl It’s a marvelous place They put weights down In your coat tails to burn you out
Lest you fly Lest you take off And show whomever what’s what. It’s one outrageous lie after another
Turn their lights out Change the channel Before we lose the heart To fight against belief in what they’re saying
There’s a hotel With a dark room At the end of a corridor I will meet you To the strains of Allah
We will lie back On a pillow of the whitest snow And the silence we were promised Will engulf us

Lay your head down Keep your head down While they’re firing low You’re too young child You’re too young child
We will wake up From the dreams that bury us We will tunnel our way out By moonlight
From the dark room To the white streets and the snow banks We’ll invest in one another’s future
Oh my pretty Oh my sweet girl It’s a marvelous place She designed it With escape routes For you and me
So to the library With your new card Grab your favorite books Look for blueprintsTo the strains of Allah Here we go….
Benevolence is in back Of everyplace you look It’s not a monstrous face she is hiding
If I see her I will tell you You’ll come quickly If you see her Don’t hesitate just go
But til then

Keep your head down Keep your head down While they’re firing low You’re too young child You’re too young child
You’re too young child Here we go…

Some People Are Hoping to Challenge Terrible Warcrimes

Having a Laugh


Clearing out the loft, I came across this old photo of Keith & I in our swimming pool in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia................