Henry Cow

Reading the ‘Wire’ Primer on the above band, reminds me that I must listen to this band much more. I have all the lps, now on cd. I have no excuse.

I saw them live. Could it have been in 1974 as support to Captain Beefheart?

As someone with a large bent nose, it is great to enjoy bands with such remarkable noses like Henry Cow & the Mothers of Invention.

Snake Oil & Smoking Mirrors

Sometimes I have to take radical steps to catch up with my listening backlog. Recently this has meant piling all my Charalambides/Cul de sac/Comets on Fire/6 organs of admittance cds onto Mp3/Wma discs so that I can just put it on & leave it.

With the Charalambides disc, I just keep going back & replaying the individual albums again as I cannot believe the beauty of what I had just heard.

Hearts & Souls & Minds across the Oceans

Weird world full of crazy coincidences & madness. I just got a phone call & various emails from my friend les, who resides in Oz, but is currently in New Zealand.

He had recently been in Goa for a couple of weeks & wanted to phone me & thank me for planting that seed in his head a hundred years ago.

As he was eating his Goan fish curry he told his new wife about me.

What can I say. I was almost speechless. However if we are not on this earth to help each other & do things like this we may as well give up.

The Hills Have Eyes

Switch off. Take time out. Practice breathing. Put yourself in that other place that safe place. Feel the rocks with your eyes shut, hug the trees, lie on your back & stare at the clouds. Get away from the hustle & bustle of everyday living. Get your priorities sorted out. Life is for living.

An easy alternative to reach ‘that place’ & one that I would recommend is to get hold of a suitable ambient cd, one that you would enjoy hearing many times without getting bored. For this writer that would be recordings of natural sounds rather than the naff new agey blandness that exists. Good examples would be Chris Watson’s cds or Geir Jensen’s field recordings of Tibet.

Certainly I would avoid the Conet Project recordings of numbers stations or Ghost Orchid’s Introduction to EVP as they make you think too much.

A lot of terrific materials can be found on the Touch label, but again avoid the Runaway Train & the other cd about Ufo sightings for the same reason given above.

The Confused Librarian’s Garden

Why use the adjective above, is this from Confucious? are we talking Chinese-stylee garden?

Let’s go back in time & look at this subject chronologically. Librarians love order.

Check the numbers; 2 young boys in tow. Let’s grass everything so they have space to play football & cricket & it will save us going to the park (although it is not far away!)

As 1 of these offspring is getting married soon, perhaps we should recall that day playing cricket, when I hit a huge 6 over the hedge & smacked a window in the next street. Naturally, I blamed the kids & ran indoors.

As they grew older (& more sensible?), I reclaimed more of the garden for plants, bushes, trees & flowers.

As I grew older & became a driver, I required a driveway. Time for the hard-landscaping. The working parts of the garden grew smaller & the enjoyable bits got bigger.

Paving & decking removed much of the grass-cutting chore. I had a smaller area to work on, so I could focus my efforts in being creative.

As the concrete appeared, I tried to balance this with the use of plants in pots to soften its effects. A Mediterranean colour scheme was utilised. This required Homebase to blend their ‘off the shelf’ blues to get the hue just right. Blue flowers were also selected, but perhaps I should have been bolder & went for those bright, bold, oranges & reds?

As stated above, librarians need order, how would I now arrange these plants? By size, by species, by colour, alphabetically, by bloom date?

Should I have a mix of shrubs, trees & flowers? I tried to get all round interest in the garden. I needed something for every season.

Time passed. I was toying with the idea now of an oriental garden. I knew my DIY skills are very limited, so it would have to be simple. Thus no water features except my tears & plenty of rain.

I had brought some Japanese style stools from the happy highlanders that we moved from indoors to outdoors. They required a swift black painted makeover (has to be done at this moment again due to a harsh winter).

I wanted a Japanese archway leading into the back garden. I thought of curved ends like the letter ‘pi’, but I kept it simple 3 pieces of timber painted black.

I could have climbers going up & along this & hanging wind chimes. Ornamental grasses, blue bark, solar lights, gravel, rocks…etc…bird tables, bird baths, bird feeders…….I am getting there.

Hanging baskets & a hammock for that mid- air suspension feeling. Everything getting blasted by the wind.

Yesterday I was out in the storm, fine-tuning the metal & bamboo wind chimes. Getting the right balance in sound. I am sure Monty Don would appreciate the latter.

I play this silly game with the local foxes. I plant loads of bulbs underground & then they come & eat them up! How do they locate them inches underground. Are these like truffles for foxes?

There is No Vibrations, but Wait

Total confusion now as spring crawls in. I was playing Justin Bennett’s cd ‘Wildlife’ the other morning early bells. You know the cd that begins with the dawn chorus.

As I was listening to it & sipping my java, I could hardly hear the birds chirping on the cd for the real blackbirds outside the window.

Isn’t this just totally mad? I am listening quite often to e.g. Chris Watson’s cds of wildlife sounds up close & then there is the leakage from the real world coming in.

My new mobile phone has 1 gig music mp3 memory. It is an 8 minute walk to work. If I listen to music walking to & from work that is 16 minutes of music I can catch. What if I listen to bird song on the moby as I walk through the park.

Is this a real or artificial soundwalk? Am I going mad?

Open Hearted Wonder & Curiosity

3 steps forward & 1 step back. Years ago messing about in bulletin boards (remember them?), I got to know some like-minded maniacs, who used to swap cassette tapes.

I distinctly, remember an acquaintance from Manchester being so gob-smacked by a copy of Roberto Musci & Giovanni Venosta ‘Messages & Portraits’, that I had sent & he was trawling resources trying to obtain other albums by the duo.

Flash forward to today 7 a.m. & I am now listening to one of their albums recently acquired: a Noise a Sound.

I remember describing their album I had on the bulletin board as a bit like Can’s Ethnoforgery Series, however living with the craziness that is the Sun City Girls recently, I would bracket Musci/Venosta in the same oeuvre as SCG now.

Mind How You Go

As a Librarian, I feel I am letting the side down because of a total lack of literary discussion on this blog. In order to address this issue I feel that a short article on the use of words should be appropriate.

Take for instance the phrase ‘Be Mindful’. I have heard ‘zen koan’ like mantra being used a lot lately.

This flashes me back to the 60s street signs, a childish appreciation & wonder at what science could do for us, the ‘I Spy’ books & a whole gamut of cd releases that relate to that naive period.

I have mentioned my fascination previously on this blog with artists on Mordant Records, Belbury Poly, the Owl Service……..etc….

I don’t know about you, maybe it is an age thing, but I enjoy those old 60s series: Adam Adamant, Avengers & films like ‘The Wicker Man’ & ‘The Quatermass Experiment’. There is just something weird about them. You just cannot put your finger on what it is.

There is something more eerie about aliens or mutants from outer space running riot, while there is a nice game of cricket being played on the village green & it is almost time for a nice cup of tea.

No Country for Old Bigots

Growing up to answer questions like: What school do you go to?, What team do you support?, put this writer off the ‘Glorious Game’ for most of his early & teenage years.

Of course there were other more enjoyable, mind- expanding, rather than mind-contracting, pursuits around at that time.

Religious bigotry & alcohol have held this fine nation back from fulfilling it’s potential for too long.

As a real football fan now, you can see how that background created such a lively atmosphere for that incredible midweek game between the old firm rivals.

How to Build a Pyramid

Hi, I am just back from B & Q & I have just opened the box, now where are those DIY instructions.

The Height of Ashbury

This blog is losing one of its most avid readers for a couple of weeks as the Happy (Hippy) Highlanders are off to San Francisco with flowers in their (what he has left?) hair.

To think they laugh at my collection of tie-dyed t-shirts!

In fact, to be honest, I am a trifle concerned about his apparent philosophical, calm approach to the fact, that he is going through Terminal 5 at Heathrow & thus he has minimal chance of ever seeing his luggage again.

This is particularly important as they have a lot of baggage & kit required for this is a ski trip.

Talking of tie dye, my friend (actually my son’s friend) is getting married soon & when I announced I would be coming along to the church, she warned me off wearing any tie die. She is still traumatised by an earlier wedding, where my sartorial elegance was said to have upstaged the bride.

AGING YOUNG REBEL

As the years pile on all I feel I can aspire to is to be like the superfit, active Germans in the Aldi/Lidl flyers that come through my door.

Recently the ‘Great Outdoors’ has been a feature of their product advertising. Although any self respecting Scot would not be seen dead in their trendy attire, I have to feel envious of how great these older people look. A look around at Scots the same age shows you miserable, beaten down, grumpy, obese, lazy, sofa slouchers & yet here is the alternative.

Mind you they all look like soap star actors or models slightly past their prime. I want to be like that. I want to be fit in my last years.

I am thinking here that the women look like aging Honor Blackman's or Ursula Andresses.

I should have mentioned that other flyers had focused on the aged keeping active. A sound message for everyone.

Life in a Scotch Sitting Room Part 33

I have always loved Jim O ‘Rourke version of ‘Women of the World’, but it is only recently that I discovered it was written by none other than our late, great national treasure: Ivor Cutler.

I have since obtained a copy of this & Jim O’Rourke’s version is fairly true to the original.

This discovery along with the fact that he was deeply involved in the Summerhill School another 60s/70s obsession of this writer pointed me to Wikipedia to learn some more.

Someone once described his work as that of, ‘exaggerated Scottishness’, I love that phrase, but it is perfect for Cutler.

I believe we should stop being British and go back to the old Whiskey Galore’ days when no-one understood us!

In addition, a Google search turned up this little gem that serves as an apt little endpiece to this or perhaps an epitaph:

‘No I Wont’

‘I’ll leave you with this thought

No, I wont. It will not be fair’

7 a.m. Freakout

After a 7 a.m. freakout with Inca Ore & all those de-tuned, distorted, bell sounds - I mean even the album title ‘The Birthday of Bless You’, is so odd.

I drifted into the next whacky album on my mp3 cd: Islaja – Palaa Aurinkoon. Does it get much better than this over that early morning cup of java?

There is so much exciting music coming from Finland as I have mentioned earlier on these pages. However, my disc reader really struggles with these Finnish albums. Too many vowels or too many constenants all in the wrong place.

Anyway the latter cd has certainly set me up for a heavy day of stamping books.

Oops I almost forgot, although it has now been around for a while, that I would recommend: Foot Foot – Snaggle & Buck. If you enjoy those early Roaches lps then this will appeal to you.

Finally, as if I had to prove that I had Catholic taste, I would add The Microphones huge output to this pot pourri.

Hard Landscaping

Deeply entrenched in my memory lies the early appearances of Arthur Brown happy in his crazy world singing ‘Fire’ & Brian Auger & Julie (Driscoll at that time: Tippetts, now) covering ‘This Wheel’s On Fire’. Was I fascinated by the fire element even then?

As I write this I am listening to Auger/Tippetts ‘Encore’, where they cover one of my favourite songs by Jack Bruce ‘Rope Ladder to the Moon’ from his best album ‘Songs for a Tailor’.

On ‘Encore’, Brian Auger is able to find space to show us how exciting his organ playing can be. I have neglected their albums over the years, but I plan to out this right.

Another forgotten band of that period & whose work is difficult to obtain, is the superb Peddlers. I have 3 stretchy cassettes of their albums, but I am on the look out for digital versions.

I still have a lot of interest in the jazz trio format or the jazz rock genre. Chicago Transit Authority, Blood, Sweat & Tears, If, East of Eden, & Colloseum……etc still excite this poor boy.

Just today, I finally got around to playing Delivery’s ‘Fool’s Meeting’ from 1971. However it was well worth the wait as it sounds so fresh today. I did hear selected tracks before, recorded on my old trusty, Grundig 4 track reel-to-reel from John peel’s shows.

A New Way of Walking: Psychogeography

Time for a serious discussion about Pedestrian Culture: I had stopped making music, as I grew increasingly interested in Soundwalks or the natural sounds around me.

I did not realise it at the time, but I was also concerned with the more visual aspects of this discovery at the same time.

‘Begin to reason about it & you at once fall into error’ (Huang Po d850)

On a recent perambulation, I spotted a huge piece of sandstone, lying beside an underpass, that I wanted to shift to my garden to form a centrepiece to for my stone circle.

On a recent perambulation, I spotted a huge piece of sunshine, lying beside an underpass, that I wanted to shift to my garden to form a centrepiece to for my stone circle.

I thought I could get it in the boot of the car, so I took the biggest son with me, but we could not budge it. Reluctantly, I had to abandon the operation.

I ask myself why I feel the need to build this structure? What is driving me to such extreme behaviour? Is it some innate Celtic/Druid thing?

Recent walks have sparked an interest in what is going on around me & what has shaped my landscape. Perhaps how I could shape my own landscape.

For some peculiar reason, the modern equivalent to ‘dowsing’: google, led me to psychogeography & Harry Bell.

Harry Bell’s ‘Glasgows Secret Geometry’ has helped me cope by pointing out that this is quite a widespread phenomenon.

I did not realise at the time why I enjoyed Iain Sinclair’s ‘London Orbital’. This was a pedestrian view of what was happening in & around a big city, if you chose a different mode of transport & selected less popular routes.

Harry Bell would call this ‘a straight road with no path’ something that obsessed him.

‘If you wish to see it before your eyes, have no fixed thoughts either for or against it’ (Seng-t-san d 606).

The quotes mentioned above could be from some trendy coffee table book called Zen & the Art of Walking.

Modern Man

Big up to our Keith for gifting me his almost-up-to-date moby (as he has a new yin). Even although the face has a huge crack (can be replaced by Omer the Turk, for a negotiated price).

This means I wont have to carry my mini Halfords digital camera, my mp3 player & my emergency contact moby, when I go on my rambles. My 1 piece of kit does everything except climb hills, keep me warm & dry & light my pipe.

Oriental Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

I must listen to Oriental Sunshine ‘Dedicated to the Bird we Love’ every day.

This crazy, beautiful, hypnotic piece of Norwegian psycedelia was nowhere to be seen in 1970 when it was released. Well maybe around Oslo’s hippie markets or on Colva Beach, Goa.

Even the title is so weird. I have only heard this album recently, but the absurd wait has been well worth while. Find it & play it every day your life will improve!

Buddy Miles R.I.P.

Harry Partch Stole my Lunch Money & Gave it to Moondog

America, perhaps due to it’s size has more than it’s fair share of ‘Outsider’ musicians.

Aside from personal favourites like the two mentioned above in the title, Daniel Johnson & frequent visitors to these pages: the Sun City Girls, there are so many more excellent mavericks to be found in the USA.

Perhaps because we are used to viewing a flat map on a page we forget the world is round & that America is really very close to Asia from the Pacific Ocean side.

Certainly, Lou Harrison, Partsch, Moondog, Terry Riley & Steve Reich have that old gamelan thing going.

Likewise the later Tom Waits & the late, great Charles Gocher’s (SCG) thought-provoking, solo work put us on a friendly far east footing.