The Imp of the Perverse

What is it with short people? Did Randy Newman call it right? I went along to watch yet another dismal performance by the Scottish Champions elect against Motherwell, on my father-in-law’s new, count the number of blades of grass at Parkhead, giant tv screen.

The big screen certainly didn’t improve the champions football, but I could make out Neil Lennon’s captains armband. However these days it is not on his arm for long. Was it only last week when it was tossed away with venom? It seems to be a handmade identifier, perhaps he made it his detention class back at school in Ireland. It is certainly not built to last 90 minutes.

He kept it on yesterday, but the big screen captured his manager’s reaction to Motherwell’s 93^rd minute equaliser. Strachan showed all his footballing skills as he demolished the subs board. As he answered gruelling, piercing questions after the match, he slipped once more into his increasingly psychedelic phrasebook. Gosh! he is so ‘out there’. The last interview I saw, he kept chewing & filling his gob with, whatever: caramels, acid, who knows, but you couldn’t make out a word. Maybe this was the idea. Scotland has produced these urban, mystic, heroes of football management theory in abundance. They insist that their players do their talking for them on the pitch, but without question, Gordon Strachan has carved out a niche for himself as the glorious games answer to Timothy Leary.

Now I have realised what I love about the whole Scottish football scene. It is not the quality of the football. Sadly I might have to agree with those who state, that the English Premier league contains more quality. However, we have all the fantastic drama that surrounds the game. The wireless is where it’s at. Pre & post match phone ins, etc are chock full of real people with real opinion & many of these opinions are frankly, Mr Shankly, downright scary. This is an area so richly full of urban life in the Scottish homeland, if only we had such fervent views on independence.

Plenty of Rain & not enough Bows

Am I sad enough to get sucked into that end of Gregorian year stuff. Reminds me of all the Millennium silliness, when people thought the mere passing of a random Gregorian date would bring cataclysmic changes! Well as a matter of fact as an avid ‘Wire’ reader, I do look forward to see what is breaking new boundaries over the year. I have compiled a very personal, eclectic, eccentric & electric list of my firm favourites over the past year.

Here goes. As always any comments welcome.

Sufjan Stevens was way up there with all of his output. In fact only this week we have been listening to his xmas songs & singing along.

Astrid Gilberto always puts a smile on my face. I finally got a copy of Alexander ‘skip’ Spence’s ‘Oar’ & The Poets ‘Scotlands No 1 Group. Pure genius!

Mostly this was a year of catching up with many of the albums I have/had on vinyl & obtaining them in the digital format.

Recent Additions	to the Catalogue
bread, love & dreams	strange tale of captain shannon
chicago	chicago transit authority
ayers, kevin	joy of a toy
ayers, kevin	whatevershebringswesing
walker, scott	1
walker, scott	2
if	1
moby grape	s/t (1967)
guthrie, arlo	running down the road (1969)
spence, alexander 'skip'	oar (1969)
it’s a beautiful day	white bird (1969)
broughton, edgar	wasa wasa (1969)
comus	first utterance
comus	keep from crying
yester, jerry & henske, judy	farewell alderbaran
walker, scott	4 (1969)
havens, richie	richard p havens 1983 (1969)
united states of america	s/t w/bonus trks
beatles	love (2006)
komeda, krzysztof	fearless vampire slayers' (ost)
family	fearless
family	entertainment
family	music in a dolls house
trees	on the shore
trees	garden of jane delawney
tontos expanding headband	zero time
tyrannosaurus rex	my people were fair
various	bumpers
various	vertigo annual 1970
cale, john	paris 1919
ayers, kevin	shooting at the moon
ayers, kevin	confessions of dr dream
kaleidoscope (uk)	tangerine dream
fahey, john	legend of blind joe death
cressida	asylum (vertigo)
tasavallan presidenti	lambertland (1972)
quintessence	dive deep
palmer, bruce	cycle is complete
astatke, mulatu	afro latin soul
tyrannosaurus rex	unicorn
quintessence	in blissful company
harrison, george (RIP)	wonderwall
affinity	s/t
moby grape	wow

Another freezing Saturday night at the Fraser Centre

Déjà vu, park the car at Tesco, Milngavie & then walk through the tunnel into the greatest little venue on the planet. This past year has been illuminated not by all those naff seasonal outdoor lights, but by the real deal, honest, personal & intimate gigs by the best folk artists around.

Last night was no exception as Rab Noakes lit up a bleak, wintry night by giving a superb solo performance at the Fraser Centre, Milngavie. I was glad it was solo, no disrespect to Fraser Speirs, but I concur with one of the bands on the Pork Label (Funky Porcini? Or Heights of Abraham?) who recorded, ‘Harmonicas are Shite’. I have lived through the blues boom & I have had enough acoustic guitar & harmonica duos to last a lifetime.

The happy highlanders had hinted that there would be a bit of R & B, soul & tamla, but there was also a killer version of Beck’s ‘Devil’s Haircut’ & an Everley Bros finale.

Also you meet such fine people at these gigs. I was chatting with someone I met about crazy nights at the Maryland, Glasgow in the early 70s & the fact that the early vibrant folk scene in Scotland has not really been recorded in the printed form.

Trying to find out about these gigs is such a challenging task itself, even for a librarian. I am annoyed & having missed Robin Williamson last month, but I am determined to try & get to Mike Heron’s performance sometime in the New Year.

Seize the Power

If I can quote the ‘Wire’ nov 06 article on Lasse Marhaug……….’With its exceptionally high living standards, bounteous welfare state, plentiful arts funding……Norway famously tops the UNs ‘quality of life index’…..oil money..’

Meanwhile we live in a 3^rd world country ravaged by poverty, unemployment, drugs, violence, a failing welfare state, with hospital & school closure, pensioners barely scraping a living………etc.

Tony Blair & the other terrorists decide (no surprise here) to upgrade Trident & site the weapons of mass destruction where?

There is enough radioactive material inside foreign diplomats roaming around London to easily build a ‘dirty bomb’.

I feel that I have missed something? Are the Scottish people so stupid that they don’t see it, or are we such a downtrodden nation, that we just accept this.

Crawling King Snake


Let me tell you about Texas radio & the big beat.............

…

wicker basket and looked very evil indeed. When I shook my head, he lifted the lid of the basket and a vicious cobra head snaked out towards my bare arms. Naturally, I turned and ran with all the haste I could muster. I was filled with hate and fear, mostly fear, especi­ally as he had taken off after me, in hot pursuit. I ran like a bat out of hell and managed to lock myself behind closed doors. After a while I began breathing, but I shall never forget the experience.

A subsequent visit to the train station, resulted in my friend Graham and myself booking the 2.00 p.m. express on Thursday 27th December for Bombay. We would be traveling relatively comfortably in a reserved sleeper at a student concession rate. These arrangements were completed on Monday 24th December or Xmas eve, later that night we retired to our hotel room and had a kind of party. These celebrations continued on through the night until Xmas Day and as soon as we could stand up without falling over, which was rather late in the evening, we trotted over to a semi-European restaurant for a late Xmas dinner.

Previous fasting (adopting local customs) in anticipation of this feast, led me to make a pig of myself. I had fried liver, chips, beans, tea, toast, vegetable cutlets, chocolate ice­ cream and strawberry milkshake. After this huge meal we returned to the hotel to rest.

Boxing Day began correctly enough with me being served breakfast in bed around noon.l lay in bed until 3.00.p.m., not my usual habit I may add, and then I sauntered out for a meal.

The only exercise I seemed to get was the walk from the hotel to a restaurant, although my arms got used lifting all that heavy food and cutlery. I also utilised muscles in my mouth, chewing all that delicious grub. Thank goodness I had read all those Billy Bunter books when I was young and I knew the delights of such an abundance of such tuck. I felt as if the others in the restaurant could see me drooling as my repast arrived on my table.

However on my return this night we ventured out to attend a concert of Indian classical music. This was to be my initial encounter with the higher castes of Indian society. There was a real lack of atmosphere at this concert, although the musicians were very talented, but the immense size of the hall and the scattered attendance, meant the acoustics were very dull. There was no warmth between the performers and the audience. The latter were very restrained, not showing any emotion and constrained by behavior appropriate to their caste.

I was also impressed by the different modes of transport available in India, e.g.,

rickshaws (powered by either man or bicycle), scooter taxis, tong-as (horse-drawn carts), or motor vehicles, etc., most of the scooter taxis were driven by Sikhs, whereas the tongas and rickshaws were manned by impoverished Hindus. On the Thursday, we travelled by tonga to the train station via Old Delhi.

This would be a fine way to remember Old Delhi, if one was never to return, viz; riding in a horse-drawn carriage at an easy pace through crowded noisy, streets. A new adventure awaited us as we boarded the Bombay express. This was a fresh, new experience for me as travelling on Indian railways was unlike a normal day-return on British Rail.

Hunting Tigers Out in India

.....lives, were actually dying of exposure in the cold streets of Delhi. Delhi seemed quite warm to me, although the Indians would, of course, disagree. One was not aware that we were fast approaching Xmas, as none of the trappings of Xmas commercialism were present in the streets of the capital. Oddly enough my first day was fully occupied by me trying to obtain transport out of the city. Hence here lies the inherent weakness in a life of travel, i.e., once one starts moving and the joy of travel gets into one's blood, one finds it difficult to stop and settle down. The fact that I spent this first day in Delhi trying to arrange transport away from that city, probably serves as an adequate description of that city.

I made enquiries concerning the availability of trains for Bombay. This would become my first limited stop en route for Goa. Distance was becoming an obsession with me, because by this time I had gone 6,000 miles and the distance from Delhi to Bombay added another 1,000 miles onto this total. I was indeed a’ Poor boy a long ways from home'.

My initial impressions of Delhi were mixed. On the one side was New Delhi, with its ultra­modern facades, with its Connaught Circus and flash hotels and Government offices. One could easily imagine oneself in London. In contrast, at the other extreme, there was Old Delhi and I was to grow acquainted with this district, because I had to criss-cross it a number of times on my way to the train station. Old Delhi buzzed with all kinds of life (& death). I recall walking past a dead horse in the middle of the main road in Old Delhi and it was being reduced to a skeleton by some very large and healthy vultures. No one in the street seemed to pay this remarkable (to me at least) event the least bit of attention. On my return from the station, many hours later, after much form-filling, I saw the animal still lying there, hardly recognisable now as a horse, but nevertheless it was keeping the

big birds busy. The sight of these vultures was frightening, and whereas in other more familiar cities, one does not even give the local scavenger birds a second glance. The sheer size of those vultures still haunts my dreams.

Now that I had entered this great city's walls, I was soon prey to many of that city's horde of trained, professional beggars. I was shocked to learn that some of these women actually maimed their own children at birth, so that they would have a successful begging career. One could also rent children, who were already maimed or badly disfigured, for the day, at what appeared to be a reasonable cost. In any case, I had to have a clear policy on begging and I had decided, after long deliberation, not to give to beggars under any circum­stances. This was not because I was mean in any way, but I soon learned that if one is generous to one alms-hunter, word quickly spreads among the others and soon one is surrounded by an angry mob, who would be quick to rob or even kill you for the shirt off one's back. My action was further justified by my witnessing the damage done by unthinking, but caring tourists, who give beggars ten dollars or the equivalent in rupees and ruin the individuals whole way of life, turning the victim to drink or some other, darker evil.

I also had a bad experience with a few beggars. One immediately comes to mind. l had been walking through the bazaar, when staring eyes asked me for some money. He was carrying a.....................

Borderline Case

I was a bit better organised at this stage, and as I could not afford to have any of my precious rupees taken, so I carried all of my rupees on my person in a small shoulder bag. As we filed into line to be searched, (this would be a very thorough search, impossible to get through), I managed to choose my moment, split-second timing was required, and escaped unnoticed into the bureau d'exchange and cashed a five-dollar travellers cheque. I got a ridiculously low official rate for my five dollars, but I dragged the actual exchange out as long as possible, as it was crucial to my master plan. After this process, I spotted that the passengers, who had already been searched, were standing outside the bus. So I walked over to join them, shaking like a leaf, but luckily I remained unobserved. I was shivering in my shoes even though the climate was markedly warmer. I had made it. I had succeeded over this last difficult hurdle. I was in India after all these trials and tribulations.

All these last, horrendous weeks, flew from my mind, when I passed through that customs post. The sun shone warmer and brighter, colours were sharper, the birds sang sweeter and I found a smile on my lips and I tear in my eye.

When we reached the first town in India, Amritsar, (the Sikh capital) we ate well, in good, cheap restaurants and could stay in a hotel, if we so desired. I chose to spend, what was to be our last night together as a group, on the bus. We reached our destination, exactly on schedule, after five long weeks and entered Delhi on Saturday 22nd December. The parting of the ways was not easy at all. After all we had been cooped up together for five weeks and 6,000 miles, and yet here we were stranded alone in a strange country. Now we had to think and fend for ourselves. As we started to slowly depart from the buses, you could cut the silence with a knife. Even though some of us were not the best of friends, we all sort of depended upon one another, and we were a comfort to one another through all our difficulties.

It was as if we had been dropped into a vacuum. It was something of a shock trying to decide what to do, where to go, who to go along with, etc.. Although we had been making plans along the way, when we had to put these plans into operation, we felt a little lethargic. Perhaps we were all so tired after completing such a hazardous journey. It was like attending a funeral, and there was a gap there as if someone had just died. Maybe we were just surprised that after all we had been through, that we had survived. We were lost sheep, looking for the flock, the pen or the shepherd. No one said goodbye when we finally alighted from the vehicles, but all the passengers drifted off the bus, split into two loose groups and stepped into the two nearby hotels.

I stayed at the Kesri Hotel, near the bazaar, with many of my companions off the bus and we cut costs by sharing a huge dormitory. The cohesiveness of the group had obviously been enhanced, by five weeks eating, sleeping and being ill together. One tends to build up strong attachments under such circumstances.

I was stunned to hear that the Indians, who slept on the pavement every day of their

Trout Mask Replica


Thinking again about the Sun City Girls concert last year(or was it the year before) & my fascination with tribal masks, I thought I would make this short posting.

Lost

Librarians are constantly aware of the severe onslaught of information: the information overload. I mean there is so much out there to take in & even although I live far away from any of the centres of population, where life rushes past, you cannot but consider what we have gained with too much of everything.

How do we find what we really need? How much of our life would be enriched by the newest most fashionable consumer goods. Sometimes it is fine to go against the flow. I mean chance plays a big part on what paths I choose. I believe that this is directed by a higher power.

Take this moment as I write this. I am listening to the High Llamas – Retrospective, Rarities & Instrumentals. I mean who else in the world is doing the same? Anyway I discovered the band by accident & they are superb in a Beach Boys/Beatles/Les Baxter kind of way.

I have more cds to listen to now than I have time left to live. A sobering thought. Thus choice becomes important. I know what I like but sometimes you have to go outside the box.

Outside this box recently I have discovered beautiful Italian soundtracks & other soundtracks that would disappear into oblivion, without someone, probably another barmy librarian, pointing me in that direction; Comus & all the raft of new & older folk material that is worth a second life e.g. Incredible String band & Pentangle. Original psychedelia/garage & the newer versions keep me sane alongside all that 60s radical, free jazz that I am only now catching up on.