From the Ganges to the Allander



I do not know where I am getting this obsession with walking along the banks of rivers, but it continued today with a wander up the River Allander in Milngavie.

It is a journey I have taken on many occasions, but as the rain held off today, I meadered up the fast flowing banks on the West Highland Way.


I can remember the time I walked along another river in a land faraway, in a land time forgot, where I would be stepping on the charred remains of bodies from the pyres.

Not so Milngavie.

Librarians Manifesto for Silence

Reading David Toop’s (one of this writers favourite authors & musicians), review of Stuart Sim’s ‘Manifesto for Silence’ I was so impressed & in total agreement that I felt I should lift huge chunks of it & upload it here as it is so relevant now to our crazy lives.

I step out into the garden to discover strange, captivating silence, so I decide to read a book outside. Minutes later I sit down & hear, at the edge of perception, a disturbance. Now it has caught my attention, I can’t ignore it, so gradually it moves to the forefront of my hearing where I can comprehend the noise as a distant car alarm.

This continues until something else takes over, or the alarm stops.

My book lies unread, I can’t concentrate due to the colonisation of my attention, by this frantic, pernicious racket. This is one of the difficulties of noise.

WHO research suggests that excessive noise can trigger heart disease by increasing sustained levels of stress hormones such as cortisol, adrenaline & noradrenaline.

Noise drives me nuts: local council days of mowing & pruning; police helicopters that shake the windows; motorway roar spreading over miles of countryside; high-ceilinged bars full of glass, metal & shouting oafs; machine noise in rooms that are supposed to be silent; drunks conversing in the street at 4 a.m.; somebody listening to the thin residue of a tune on their mobile in a so-called quiet coach on a train; amplified announcements telling us to watch our bags.

Just thinking about noise is a health risk.

The Late but Timely Return of the Great Bobo Baldi


As the final whistle sounds, we have Celtic narrowly sitting at the top of the table (where they belong of course), but it has been swings & roundabouts, not the usual Premier League won by Xmas that we have grown used to.

Is this the worse two Celtic & Rangers teams for years?

Certainly our heroes have been leaking goals, but perhaps that it all over now. Thanks Santa for letting Gordon see sense. Big Bobo is the missing piece of the jigsaw. He will get us results at home & perhaps in Europe?


We hope!

End of an Ear

Wading through the boring list of last year’s the best of whatever & 1 list I do attend to is ‘the Wire’s 2007 Rewind: 50 records of the Year.

To be honest, I have 40+ of these releases & I think that this is a very healthy sign.

Robert Wyatt’s ‘Comicopera’ is sitting @ #1….way cool man, I can dig it as we over 50s say. Karl Heinz Stockhausen was laughing all the way to his grave (R.I.P).

Last Xmas, I obtained Sufjan Stevens album of xmas songs & playing it constantly gets you in the mood, but hearing songs of quality sounds better than the usual stuff you hear elsewhere.

What’s shaking my xmas tree:

18^th Day of May

v/a – fistful of fuzz

brian hanratty – American winter

hans Frisch – sjooooo

greg davis – somnia

Beirut – live Glastonbury

Stanley bros – Columbia recordings

Daevid allen’ gong – banana moon (69 classic)

Animals – winds of change (1^st lp) psychedelic headcleaner

Gavin bryars – sinking of the titanic (new version with phil jeck): spooky listening to this as I have spent the last week watching boats, divers, police outside the library window searching for bodies of mariners after their tug went down!!!!

Between 2 Rivers: More Tales of the Riverbank

Living between the Forth & Clyde Canal & the River Clyde, I also enter a comfort zone walking along the shores of the Leven or the Clyde in Dumbarton.

My workplace has constant views of the Clyde & it is so important that this river is no longer hidden from sight, behind buildings as if we are ashamed of it.

Recently however the tragic side of the river has been on view. I found it totally surreal to be eating smoked salmon & listening to a live string quartet at an end of year party, when outside the huge windows, there were large numbers of police, divers, coastguard & boats searching for bodies.

As I grow older the waterways & the hills are becoming central to my life. I am no longer heading off to Kathmandu on a whim or a 4 month jaunt, so on a micro level I find enough to interest me closer to home.

I hope to get down to see Dunglass Castle at some point. It is more than just a convenient name for a roundabout. I would also like to continue my exploration of the area around Balloch Castle & the woods.

I remember a notion I once had, that if you could not reach the place you wanted on foot, then it was not worth going there.

(insert ‘Goodnight Irene’ ‘Sometimes a Great Notion’)

My colleague, Neeraj has booked an 8 day holiday in Goa this January with his new wife. He asked my advice on Goa & although I am deeply touched that he would respect my thoughts on this matter, I fell so helpless as my information is now redundant in such a rapidly changing world. It is 33 years since I was there. Please note kabalah heads here is another magic number!

There was no hotels when I was there. Certainly no-one could envisage a Marriot going up amid all those dirty hippies. The only ‘goa trance’ I knew, was when we lit up the first of the day!

8 days holiday, it took me 8 days to get a jar of water from the well or to get the one-eyed goat shepherd to deliver the goats & the fresh milk, to my spot on the beach.

In the Land of the Lennox

At last a day off on a bright crisp dry winter’s day & the opportunity to get out for a walk.

Re-tracing old schoolboy haunts, I crossed the River Leven & set off around Levengrove Park. I thought I knew every inch of this park, as I almost lived here during the last 2 years of my schooldays.

However, I did discover a forgotten corner, that I had not seen before & here lay the ruins of St Serf’s church.

Derelict & neglected but it was with great interest that I read the plaque, that stated that the viscera of Robert the Bruce lay there. His heart was supposed to go to Palestine (as he always wished to go on crusade, events closer to home kept him too busy!),but a wise neighbour informed me that it only got as far as Melrose!

Alistair, the history lecturer, & who lives in Dumbarton, pooh poohs this fact & states that, if all the alleged remains of Roberto were placed together, they would stretch from Silverton to Newtonmore.

I know there are many doubts about the authenticity of various relics of the saints & bits of the Christ cross, especially around the Kingdom of Lennox with the St Patrick legend & Pontius Pilate’s birthplace….etc…….but I wanted to believe I had discovered the final resting place of bits of one of our national heroes.

As I am hoping to attend a wedding at Dumbarton Castle this summer (if I have not upset my future daughter-in-law, by trashing her hair!), it felt good to know, while I was standing in that churchyard, I could also see the castle, where our other national hero was taken on his capture by the darkness, before he was taken to his terrible fate in London.

Why Are All the Tobacconists Riding Sleds?

To understand the above heading you would need to know the Billy Connolly sketch.

Having to ‘make do’ with Clan as, Asda had no Gold Block is not good enough: get it right.

Us pipesmokers used to be spoiled for choice & now we have to compromise or else.

This weirdness was nothing compared to my shock when I discovered the Happy Highlander had left me what I thought was a cd by Bobby Sands. However all was well when I discovered it was a Tommy Sands.

Is it just a crazy time of year. My Scottish CrossCountry dance class was cancelled yesterday as my teacher was ill. I had to settle for the less than macho game of 5- a- sides.

As you can imagine these macho lads who gave me such a rough time last week when they saw me at the dance class, were looking to make more mileage out of the experience.

They were laughing on the other side of their faces as I backhealed & nutmeged the goalkeeper into the back of the net. The joke was that it was thought to be a move I learned at my class. It was thought to be part of the Gay Gordon.

Black Ships

Playing Current 93’s ‘Black Ships Ate the Sky’ at 7 a.m. reminded me of how great this piece of work is.

I have dipped in & out of this gothic folk/country genre for a while.

Maybe it’s time for some Johnny Dowd or some Handsome Family or Jim White freakiness or is that too depressing for these long winter nights?

What a great title for an album, but what does it mean? ‘Black Ships Ate the Sky’………….the answer my friend is blowing in the wind.

Dharma Bums

There is something very odd about listening to a cd of Allen Ginsberg reading Jack Kerouac’s ‘Dharma Bums’ (One of my favourite Kerouac novels).

Both are now dead (but not forgotten), but they were a major part of my youth & the start of my lifelong journey.

I mentioned this to Keith Dylan Ginsberg Beattie, but he probably thought why was bobby d. not on it too?

How to Survive a 21^st Century Scottish Winter Without Central Heating: guide for the over 50s

· Wear fleece pyjamas.

· Keep your mobile phone by your bedside.

· Don’t drink too much liquid before retiring as this could lead to unnecessary journey to the loo during the night, with the increased risk of falling downstairs

· Seek advice from concerned experts e.g. Saga

Jackie Leven

Sorely tempted to go & see Jackie Leven @ King Tuts Wah Wah Hut again, but I have caught him twice there in recent years.

Maybe I am just all gigged out with concerts in Milngavie with Bridget St John/Michael Chapman & Robin Williamson & Andy Irvine all within these dark winter months.

The Happy Highlander & I have certainly filled the Jackie Leven gaps in our ridiculously huge cd collections of late.

I am sure that he is as aware as I am, that this lifelong obsession, began as our paths crossed with arms full of vinyl, will one day come to an end.

Tears of a Clown

I don’t know what’s happening to me, maybe it’s just an age thing, but in this past year, the tears come into my eyes very easily.

Last night my wife & I watched a movie on tv ‘In America’ made by the same team that created the ‘My Left Foot’ film. It was a family’s plight in the poorer part of New York. It was sad: we cried.

P. S..I had the above Tom Rapp on vinyl: in fact I still have it

Bin Down so Long, It Seems Like Up to Me

No excuses. Why have I taken a while to update. Well I have been busy with the last of the concerts at the Fraser Centre, Milngavie: Andy Irvine. He was outstanding.

Also managed to cram in some undirected reading.

I started Christopher Brookmyre’s ‘A Tale Etched in Blood & Hard Pencil’ while up @ Glenmore. It is an excellent story about a Catholic school childhood in the Central Belt. I honestly could not put it down.

There is of course a knock on effect, I am struggling for time with my 3 novels in 6 weeks for the Reading Group from Clydebank Library & the 1 title per month for the College Reading Group. (Stress for librarians!)

Fortunately, I have read the Fanatic by James Robertson for the latter, however I am on still on the first book for the public library: Jane Harris’s ‘The Observations’, but its this thick. It is a gripping tale of Scottish life & very much along similar lines to Patrick McGill’s ‘Children of the Dead End’, a novel that still haunts me.

Thank You For Asking Me No Questions Jumblequeen

Another ‘big up’ to Jason Smith & the Fraser Centre, Milngavie for making an old man very satisfied & happy.

On Saturday, my wife & I witnessed an incredible performance of 2 living legends, Bridget St John & Michael Chapman. It seemed hardly possible. I had to pinch myself to check it was really happening, it wasn’t a dream.

Michael Chapman toured recently after being ‘at death’s door’ & I was upset at missing him, so it was an ideal opportunity to catch him & then there was Bridget. Double plus plus. It doesn’t get any better than this.

I had caught a recent USA radio show & interview with Bridget (‘Spinning on Air’ with David Garland) & she get close to the format of that show. Thus I knew what to expect & it was all good.

I am still in awe with some of the events I have caught at this location a mere 15 minutes drive from my house.

Soundtrack for a Revolution that Never Was

Jefferson Airplane – Volunteers (‘Up against the wall M……..’)

Country Joe & Fish – Electric Music for the Mind & Body

Fugs – It Crawled Into My Hand Honest

Mothers – Freak Out

Captain Beefheart – Trout Mask Replica

Incredible String Band – 5000 Spirits

Love – Da Capo/For Sail

Beatles – Sgt Pepper

Grateful Dead – American Beauty/Workingman’s Dead

Blodwyn Pig – Getting Into This

Family – Music in a Doll’s House

Edgar Broughton Band – Wasa Wasa/Inside Out

Tyrannosaurus Rex – My People Were Fair/

Soft Machine – Vols 1 & 2

Pretty Things – S.F. Sorrow/

Savoy Brown – Shake Down

Jimi Hendrix – Axis Bold as Love

Van Morrison – Astral Weeks

Pink Floyd – Ummagumma

Velvet Underground & Nico

Between Two Worlds

Winter: short dark grey days & long cold nights. What makes it tolerable is the comfort food – the soups, the pastas & roasted tubers, peppers & vegs.

Darkness & light. We do not do enough with the light. My family, friends & neighbours laugh at my DIY attempts to bring some light to our garden in the winter.

A recent rescue & food drop to the Glenmore Forest Park gave me the opportunity to see what others, more professional, can do with the darkness & light.

Although I am too parsimonious to pay the £12 entrance fee for ‘Between Two Worlds’ after dark, I did get a feel for the event at dusk. I thoroughly enjoyed the wolf sound loops in the forest.

Centring

Listening to a Terry Riley & Don Cherry album from 1970 flashed me back to that period. What was happening to me then. Why did I enjoy The Doors so much? I now think it could have been that basic pulse common to all Celtic peoples: the drone.

I know I have ranted & raved about this in previous posts, but I feel it is so central to our old way of living like those standing stones, scattered throughout Scotland & given decent descriptions in Julian Cope’s massive tome.

Looking back at my vinyl collection I was a little obsessed with both Terry Riley (In C/Poppy Nogood/a Rainbow in Curved Air)(the latter is used as the title of this modest blog!) & Don Cherry (Eternal Now/Relativity Suite/Actions). Why was this?

Perhaps I was searching for a comfort zone, roots, ambience or something meditative. I have always enjoyed Indian sitar music & World Music before it became a fashion.

I suspect it was due to the fact that this kind of drone used to be central to our way of life & now it is not.

Maybe I am just afraid of silence. I know that if I am in our toilet in the early a.m., I am much happier opening the window, despite the cold air rushing in, because I enjoy the ambient sounds drifting in.

Library Music

Listening to Janek Schaefer’s Recital from the Old Library (an item well below the radar, but a classic in this writer’s opinion) & I noticed in this month’s ‘Wire’, that he has been nominated in the New Media category of the British Composer of the Year 2007. Not before time, I reckon anyone who mentions libraries walks on water.

On that theme I would admit to having a great passion for the genre called Library Music. I have been exposed to a lot of this lately: Bosworth & Chappels Music for Dancefloors, De Wolfe, KPM. In addition, I am mixing this with those quality Italian soundtracks…e.g. Morricone, Nardini, Umiliani…..etc……

Point of Information: the 2^nd SLIC FE Conference in taking place on the 23^rd November 2007 in the Cunard Suite of Clydebank College. I understand a visit to the grooviest library in the world may be on the agenda.

rainbows in curved air

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White Bicycles

I would like to re-state it was Robin Williamson I went to see last week and not Robbie Williams as you might suspect.

Robin, not Robbie, did mention Joe Boyd’s book on the folk revival UK. I felt guilty as I had the book from a local library & had not got around to reading it.

As I was on hols I made a great effort & read it. It was a bit disappointing I did expect it to be better. He did mention (as did Robin) that he thought Mike & Robin were always at the scrapping: not true!

The beginning of the book is mostly about the USA & jazz & Newport Festivals. The bit I was concerned about didn’t take up much of the book & there was not much detail.

There is, I fear, the need for an in-depth, look at this early period…e.g. Bert Jansch trip to North Africa, Clive Palmer’s journey to Afghanistan, Davey Graham’s impact, John Martyn’s early days…………..

More Nostalgic Hippie Nonsense

A weeks holiday in November how will I spend it? Catching up with myself. I did go in to college midweek for my 5-a-side game, but that just shows my level of commitment.

Yesterday, I re-lived a painful & pleasurable journey as I re-traced steps taken as a small child.

After school I often took off alone into the Kilpatrick Hills & I relived this epic journey armed with suitable boots & clothing. Or so I thought. As I did when I was younger, I did get wet feet, I cannot remember so much bogland & mud.

I passed the wall where I leaned my back to read ‘Lord of the Rings’ during one of those glorious, carefree summers. It had to be read outdoors for the ambience.

I sound like an aged Gandalf the Grey, when I complain about how these fields were full of lapwings, sparrowhawks & skylarks. Now its just the clattering magpies (rare when I was young!) & the old crows. At one point, at twilight’s last gleaming, I saw a flock of around 300 crows squaking directly above me as they headed in to roost.

Looking over to what we used to call the ‘Judges Wig’, a hill covered in pine forest, I could see what I would wish to name: the ‘Judges New Wig’ as it echoes the older forest nearby.

I became tearful as I followed the burn & I remembered my father taking me here to catch trout from under rocks with our bare hands. Gypsy fishing. I know every rock in this burn, even after all this time. I know the shape of these rocks underwater, all the nooks & crannies, where the trout would shelter. At least you would not notice the tears as they soon drip down into the burn. I would spend all day here, when I was young only rushing home as it started to get dark.

I searched for the waterfall in the forest. I could now see it from the fence. This is the odd thing. Although I have been up here a few years ago, the landscape has changed a fair amount since my youth. The paths have moved. Other areas have become overgrown or have been cleared. Even the course of the burn has been altered. So much so in one area that used to be a loch for Saturday morning fishing with a rod in the rain, that it is virtually unrecognisable as it has dried up.

My father would collect the crab apples from the old gnarled trees. No one picks them now they just drop to the ground. Even the sheep pass them by. My mother would make wonderful fruit pies with them or with the blueberries or brambles. Who does this now?

Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat

Thinking about the simple pleasures in this life as I open one of Tesco’s finest products: roasted courgettes with chilli & listen to Kiss the Anus of a Black Cat.

Anyway I have to get out & get some exercise if I wish to compete in the 2014 Commonwealth Games.

DR Z

(Lifted with respect to Chris Goes Rocks Blogspot.)

One of the great, lost prog rock albums, Dr. Z's “Three Parts to My Soul” ended up being one of the rarest albums on the "swirl" Vertigo label, with only 80 copies said to exist.

Luckily it was reissued many times, starting with Second Battle in Germany, Si- Wan in Korea, Universal in Japan, and most recently Akarma in Italy. Most of these reissues replicate the original gimmick cover (a die-cut fold-out cover not unlike ELP's “Brain Salad Surgery”).

Dr. Z was lead by North Wales university professor Keith Keyes, who handles keyboards (harpsichord, piano, organ), as well as vocals, with Bob Watkins on drums, and Rob Watson on bass. This is another album, like BLACK WIDOW's “Sacrifice”, that featured lyrics that flirted with the occult in a prog rock setting.

Here Keyes had the idea that in the afterlife, your soul is divided in to three parts, with a Latin term to each, Spiritus, Manes et Umbra. Spiritus was the soul that goes to heaven, Manes is the soul that's damned to Hell, and Umbra being the soul that stays on Earth to eternally haunt.

There are some people who don't think this album is particularly good. OK, so don't expect polished YES/GENESIS-influenced prog here. What you get is early British prog, dominated mainly by harpsichord, with occult lyrics and very peculiar vocals, trying to sound "evil".

The production isn't the greatest in the world, although it was produced by Patrick Campbell-Lyons of NIRVANA (the late '60s/early '70s UK band that is, hardly the Kurt Cobain-led grunge band everyone knows of).

"Evil Woman's Manly Child" is said to be a reverse of the Ten Commandments. Here you get two voices, a whispered voice and a sung voice.

This is truly one of the album's many high points. "Spiritus, Manes et Umbra" could almost sound like a hit if things worked out a bit different for the band (and of course, rid of the drum solo). It's such a catchy little song. "Summer For the Rose" shows some psychedelic elements, showing how in 1971, the 1960s hadn't totally vanished. "Burn in Anger" is a piano-dominated ballad that truly screams 1971, while "Too Well Satisfied" is one of those cheesy songs with lots of appeal. "In a Token of Despair" is the closing ballad, regarding the spirit that haunts the Earth.

The entire album has that theatrical quality. Many of the reissues come with two bonus cuts, "Lady Ladybird" and "People in the Street", which was released as a single back in 1970 on Fontana. What's really interesting about these two cuts, written by Keith Keyes as on “Three Parts to My Soul”, is you will find absolutely no signs of occult subject matters in these two songs. "Lady Ladybird" is a pretty cheery number. "People in the Street" on the other hand sounds too much like straight-up pop, lacking the charm of "Lady Ladybird". But for “Three Parts to My Soul”, this might not to be everyone's taste, but I like the album, regardless what might be said.(Review by proghead0)

1. Evil Woman's Manly Child (4:47)

2. Spiritus, Manes et Umbra (11:51)

3. Summer for the Rose (4:32)

4. Burn in Anger (3:25)

5. Too Well Satisfied (5:49)

6. In a Token of Despair (10:31)

...Bonus tracks on CD release:

7. Lady Ladybird (2:46)

8. People in the Street (3:08)