Bristol calling

 

This time tomorrow I should be on my way to Bristol. It’ll be just a few days shy of ten years since I visited the city for the first time; I wonder how much has changed...

I went there then at the invitation of a friend, L, whom I had met at Chelsea School of Art where we were doing a part-time illustration course, and she used to travel down from Bath once a week just for the teaching sessions.  This would seem to most people to be quite a big undertaking anyway but I have no end of admiration for L for doing it because she also had some significant physical impairments, one of which affected her ability to simply breathe.   Yet she was one of the most driven, feisty and active people I have ever known, determined to squeeze the absolute most out of life even though at times it really must have been a struggle, plus she was very much a fighter for justice and equal rights.  Sadly L is no longer with us but I’ll think of her while I’m in Bristol again this week as it was thanks to her offer to take me to her MA Fine Art Graduation Show at UWE that I went in 2015.

For much of the time, though, I explored on my own.  I wandered, unworried about time or distance, got lost near Clifton, found my way again, was ambushed by some film-makers outside the Arnolfini (where I was persuaded to try out a prototype VR headset to walk right through the middle of Bosch’s ‘Garden of Earthly Delights’),  fell in love with a 50-year old giant lobster called Patrick at the Aquarium, met a cat on a wild hill near the Avon Gorge, and time-travelled in the Red Lodge Museum, amongst other delightful activities during my stay.  

Now a whole decade later I'll be there once more, and on this occasion I’m so pleased to be able to unite with one of the loveliest groups of people you could wish to spend time with: my fellow bloggers!  It’ll be something of a whirlwind trip but what a treat to be among such good folk, a couple of whom I’ve not met before.  Something tells me there’ll be smiles, anecdotes and probably drink aplenty, and that being back in Bristol may well feel like visiting an old friend too.

See you soon!

A sweet spot of sixties psych

I caught myself doing a bit of reflecting recently.  Not always a good thing, I know, but what it led me to was thinking about those little sweet spots in life.  I do like that phrase, 'sweet spot', and found the perfect definition here: "An optimum point or combination of factors and qualities".

And what that led me to was music, and how there had been one very specific sweet spot in several decades of my personal musical meanderings. An optimum point in the 1980s when I first discovered and became immersed in 1960s psychedelia (and similar pop, beat and garage obscurities) which came into my consciousness via some independent label reissues, compilation albums, as well as boxes of musty vinyl at record fairs in London hotels and the Record & Tape Exchange in Notting Hill Gate and Camden.  Oh, what aural pleasures there were to explore!

Much of these underground treasures were like nothing I'd really heard before.  All those various elements of backwards, or fuzzy, or jangly and melodic, guitars, of piquant melodies and swirling (is there any other type?) Hammond organs, of trippy lyrics and richly enunciated vocals.  Plus there were the soulful numbers infused with mod rhythms, and dreamy Alice-In-Wonderland experimental freakouts...  All I could do was to imagine what it would have been like to be 17 or 18 in 1967, hanging out at the UFO Club or buying my clothes from Biba.  And imagining it was fine - moulded to suit my will and unbound by reality, one foot in my tangible world and the other in the curated version of a past I could inhabit freely through music and associated ephemera and imagery.  

I think the thing was, nothing could come along and spoil it.  The bands and their records had been and gone; it was finite.  Punk had been my gateway musical genre (and a very important one), but living through it in real time also meant being there for its demise, being there should it get 'spoiled' - which, in many ways, it did.  From the characters who became parodies of themselves and the unsavoury transition into Oi, to the postcard studded-belt, giant Mohawked tourist attractions, it evolved alongside my contemporaries and me.  But by delving back into moments in music which had already passed nearly two decades earlier, there was no future unwritten.

It was a bit of a sweet spot in life for me too, really.  That stage when you have some responsibilities - paying the rent, etc. - but  not too many it seemed, and they were a fair trade-off for youthful independence.  My '60s psych obsession fuelled my creativity and I adored making my own fanzine, all hand-drawn and hand-written, an uninhibited expression from the heart.  Swapping some meticulously compiled tapes with a fantastic friend introduced me to other similar bands and musical side-trips, opening it up even more. I also inherited my mum's lovely 1969 Triumph Herald, one of those cars which epitomised the era, and found an original paisley top or two in the racks of pokey second hand and charity shops. 

Being only 20-something in the analogue world to which I'm still best suited may have a lot to do with it too, but this isn't meant to be nostalgic - just a celebration of one of those sweet spots, and some music to dream to.  Here are three favourites, then and now....

Ruperts People: Dream On My Mind

The End: Cardboard Watch

The Factory: Try A Little Sunshine

Do you have a musical sweet spot too?

Tubthumping fun

Chumbawamba got it right, didn't they?

It was so good, even better than I'd expected, to see them again on the recent BBC Four repeats of  'Top of the Pops' episodes from August 1997.  'Tubthumping' is one of those songs that's so familiar it's easy to take it completely for granted.  But Chumbawamba's two performances on the show were pure joy.  There's the one where they're all clad in black and another where the line-up are dressed immaculately in distinctly non-anarcho white, apart from vocalist Dunstan in a mad brick wall pattern suit.  In both, the studio's teenybop audience go wild.

There's loads I could write about Chumbawamba but others can do it so much better and I don't feel I could do the band justice, so I'm here just because I'm bursting with a newly energised appreciation of them all these years later.  And because something in my head is going: this is what anarcho-punk should have been like all along.

I suggest this only from my own perspective and experience, but I think it'd be fair to say that there are some things that Mr SDS regrets about his time in another anarcho-punk band, perhaps the main thing being the lack of...  fun.  The same goes for me, being immersed in it at the time too.  I still think it's great that the bands (and followers) were fired up and angry enough to express and promote beliefs, support countless under-represented people and causes, etc. and what better time than in your youth when you have all that energy and the genuine conviction that you can change things through music, through coming together, spreading the word and so on.  But I don't think there was enough light to help offset the justified yet depressing darkness in this particular genre.  Black clothes became - rather ironically - a soulless uniform, after-gig conversations often continued political debates with little humour; there wasn't much frivolous relief.  And that's not to mention a degree of the "I'm more earnest than you" self-righteousness and judgement within its ranks too.

There's also the glaringly obvious fact that most bands by their very nature were only appealing to a few, a minority who wanted their music loud, shouty, angry, dischordant or whatever.  Music that reflected the seriousness of the lyrics, music that your parents wouldn't like.  Thus there was a continual loop of preaching to the converted, and everything staying within its own parameters: underground.

But then you get Chumbawamba.  Upbeat, musically diverse and genuinely talented and melodic - they actually smile, they dance, they make you... feel good?  Is that ok, to feel good?  It doesn't mean you don't still care.  For a while in anarcho's most intense period during the '80s, it seemed it just wasn't ok to enjoy yourself.   Whilst maybe I shouldn't compare Chumbawamba's success in 'Tubthumping' with the anarcho scene from around 15 years earlier, I wonder if it still serves as a valid example of what could have been?  

Chumbawamba had been a big part of the '80s anarcho punk movement, playing numerous benefit gigs and writing songs about the miners' strikes, homophobia, etc. but it was their signing to EMI in 1997 which perhaps caused the most controversy.  Did they 'sell out" or did they do exactly the right thing by accepting an offer that would propel them into the charts and give them access to hundreds of thousands more listeners and potential converts around the world?  They argued that, in a capitalist environment, almost every record company operated around capitalist principles - even smaller ones were motivated by profit - so the move to a major label brought them much bigger exposure plus the funds to do more.  Soon after,  'Tubthumping', with its singalong chorus (and prolific use of the word 'pissing'!) hit the charts, and I remember thinking at the time, "whaaat?  An anarcho punk band on the BBC?!"   

Watching them again on the repeats though, I'm so charmed and impressed by everything about them.  They really look like they're having...  fun. Smiles!  Dancing!  Loudhailers!  A trumpet break! 

I think guitarist Boff Whalley puts it really well in an interview with the Guardian from 2016.   "To 99% of people we just had that one song, but there is always the 1% who listen to the rest of the album and like it enough to listen to more.  I still really like 'Tubthumping'.  I don't feel embarrassed by it at all.  I know some bands who hate their songs being popular, but I just think, 'Get off your high horse!'  The whole point of art is to have an audience."

Vocalist Dunstan Bruce adds, "I never gave a shit about people saying we had sold out.  It was much more important to be part of popular culture as a political band.  We gave a lot of the money away and it was a real opportunity to do something positive."

So positive that it unexpectedly made my day to see these two performances again...  I hope it does yours.

Big bird

I hear it before I see it.

A whistling call, slightly eerie.

Tilt my head upwards…

Oh wow.  Flying low, wheeling, above the gardens.  In the cloudless sky its plumage is unmistakeable – the barred underwing feathers, the forked russet tail, the white head.  And then it soars right over me, that whistling call on repeat, and angles its head down to survey.  Does it see me?  I think it does.  I’m disproportionately (and, I know, ridiculously!) moved to the point that my eyes prick with tears.  I can’t really explain why, except I think it’s something about the wonder of seeing such a huge, majestic bird in the wild, and of knowing its bittersweet back story.

…

Look up!

Something compels me to look up... even though I haven't seen it yet.

I’m wandering down the slope, on the way to the shops.  But it’s what’s above which now has my attention.  The circling – wings outstretched, so wide! – and the tell-tale shape of its tail.  As I keep walking, the bird’s effortless-looking spirals move ahead of me incrementally and it feels as if it’s leading the way.  I follow, but it has the advantage over me; its speed reducing it to a mere speck, and then out of sight.  I want to fly!

…

I’m hanging the washing out on this still, intensely bright, cyan blue March morning, when a movement pierces the skyscape. Rising upward over the roof, gaining height, higher, higher - and then a graceful glide, henna-hued tail fanned - over the ridge tiles and away.  But what a sight.

…

Once again, I hear it before I see it.  Oh, that call.  I’m tuned in now, that'll be it forever now, my ears have instinctively diverted to it, over the sound of cars and jackdaws.  That whistle is really evocative – a sound that taps into something deep and primeval  – as if I've been here before, centuries ago.   I wait in the garden for it to pass over, oh please do! - and yes it does –  coming so low I can see its detail, the yellow bill, its eyes swivelling to look down.  Ohhh! Then off again over the fields, the whistling getting fainter.  I feel a thrill.

…

For four days running now I’ve enjoyed the spectacle of the red kite.  I’m sure it must be the same one.  I said it came low, but then I thought, how low was it really?  Considering this bird of prey has a wingspan of up to 6 feet, it was probably still quite high up.  I’m trying to imagine it landing in the garden and how much space it would take up…which really puts things in proportion.... 

Is it that direct connection to wildness, to nature and a relatively unfamiliar creature which excites and delights me so much?  I think it must be, but as I mentioned above, it's also the back story.  If you don't already know about the red kite's history here it really is noteworthy.  Centuries ago they were common but, as with so many birds of prey, they suffered from severe persecution.  Sadly so much so that, by the late 1800s, they were extinct in England.  But in 1990, efforts were made to reintroduce them - and it all started off with just 13 pairs, who were flown over (in a British Airways jet!) from Spain.  Those 13 pairs did well - breeding successfully in the Chilterns, their young continuing the generations, more birds then being introduced, and gradually they've spread further out across the country.  It's now thought we have nearly 5000 pairs of red kites - maybe you already see them regularly? - but if you haven't yet spotted one, I'm sure they'll be coming to a field or garden near you soon, they're doing so well.  I hadn't seen one here until the last few years.

Everything's alright, even when it isn't, when these moments happen.  I'll be happy to stop whatever I'm doing, to be moved and exhilarated, breath-taken, grateful and in awe of this big, beautiful bird any time.  I hope I see it again today.

Simon Dupree & The Big Sound: Kites (!)

Eddie Floyd: Big Bird (a different kind of big bird, but what a song)

That eerie sounding call

Clearing the bank

That weekend my world was one of bearded men with chainsaws and women in pinnies.  The men wielded their tools, the women replenished melamine trays with mugs of tea and home-made rock cakes.  The children, me included, looked on, wide-eyed, from a safe distance.

It all felt very communal.  Everyone getting on in this neighbourly effort to clear the bank, a steeply sloping strip of wild ground opposite our three houses.  Here the trees and brambles, cow parsley, dock and nettles taught us kids their own nature lessons, lessons learned through the experiences of itchy legs, scratched arms, and knees stained chlorophyll green.  It was here that I learned how to produce an impressive whistle through a broad blade of grass by making a split with my fingernail in the top to blow through, and where I learned the names of  birds who gorged on the blackberries amid the thorns.

But that weekend it was all about clearance – some roots had spread into the garden on the other side and were threatening the foundations of the adjacent house.  One of the trees would have to be cut down and The Men of the neighbourhood were going to do it.  Now, I’m not sure that I could truthfully describe any of the three males involved as being hurly-burly, hairy-arsed, lumberjack types – quite the opposite, because they were our Dads, and our Dads were all of scientific and mathematical persuasion and watched 'Tomorrow's World'.   But two out of three sported hairy chins (Dad from No. 3, and mine) so that was a start. 

Not my Dad

Old garments were donned and implements oiled whilst inside each kitchen, the aforementioned rock cakes were baked by The Women, and mixing spoons licked clean by The Kids, before the ominous revving of a chainsaw broke through conversation and work commenced.  Then, every couple of hours, out came the trays of tea and sugary sustenance, the noise of metal teeth on wood subsided and excited chatter resumed.  Wow, look at that huge branch!  How much more to do?  Another cake?

This memory stays with me, not because anything spectacular happened (all human limbs remained intact) but it seemed like an Event.  There was something about the mood, the camaraderie, the collective effort of three families, where all the members were of similar age and had the same aim, that puts me in mind of documentary films I’ve watched about communes and co-operatives around the same time. Although a bit different this was still just so... so early '70s.  I get a special feeling mixed in with these recollections and it’s a nice one.  Picture, if you will, bohemian stoneware mugs, fisherman’s sweaters, bold flowery aprons, macrame wall-hangings and eight children who were free to play and be a little wild outdoors.   As with most things in life, it didn’t last - the family from No. 3 moved away and mine fell apart - but I still bask in the warmth of childhood reminiscences like this.

My Mum planted a large strawberry patch on the newly open ground and that Summer the fruits were abundant.  We shared them with our neighbours, of course - and the blackbirds and robins helped themselves.

The Sweet: Chop Chop (1972)

Bite me!

I've been bitten by the bug.  I wish I meant I'm addicted to an exciting new interest but unfortunately it's more literal than that; this is the culprit:

Oops, wrong pic, it's this one below, but it does feel as if something far more malignant is responsible.

This is the Flower Bug.  A sweet little thing, really, but I have so many painful bites from this insect that I feel more like one big bite with a little bit of unblemished skin attached.  The Flower Bug is only a few millimetres in length and whilst I've never noticed one land on me, they're all around - all around the tiny wildflower patch and the nettles at the end of the garden, all around any plants that attract aphids and other small insects which they eat (they're even used as biological pest control for crop production in some areas; these are the good guys!)   Unfortunately they seem to want to prey on me too and my skin reacts quite badly to their nipping, coming up in big red weals which are intensely itchy and take many days to heal.  There are bites on my arms, my legs, and in a few more unexpected places too (put it this way, I have no idea how one could have got inside my bra...)  Aside from sporting a hazmat suit I've kept as covered up as I can in their presence and yet still they manage to find their way into - under - through? my clothes.  A constellation of pink welts decorates my torso right now - an Ursa Minor of irritation.  Hats off (although probably best to keep them on, with nets attached) to our friends in Scotland who have to cope with the midges.  Anyway, insect repellant has now been bought and I hope I can frolic amid the flowers unbitten in future.

Thinking about the Flower Bug did, however, remind me of a really great song and I can't get it out of my head.  It was one of the first '60s psychy numbers I'd ever heard, some time in the mid '80s, which piqued my interest in the genre and started off a whole other foray into underground freakbeat and psych.  It was like nothing I'd ever really listened to before - oh, remember how that feels?! - the excitement and magic of embarking on a hitherto unknown musical journey.  From hearing songs like this I was opened up to all those obscure records which were given a new lease of life in the ‘80s when labels like Bam Caruso, Big Beat, Psycho and See For Miles mined the rich seam of 1960s psych and beat to present them to a new audience, and it became quite an obsession.  Dare I say, I was bitten by the bug...

Enough of the introduction!  Here's Flower King of Flies by the Nice, the opening track of their 1968 debut album, 'The Thoughts of Emerlist Davjack', all Hammond organ, psychy guitar, speeded up echo effects and trippy lyrics.

Now to coat myself in insect spray.

Ono? Oh yes

The young woman opened her bag and took out an orange with an almost perfectly formed circle of peel missing.  The flesh beneath remained untouched, still encased in its pithy tissue.  The woman took one bite, not of the fruit, but of the peel only, pulling a small section away with her teeth and chewing it, swallowing it.  She then put the orange back in her bag.

It felt as if my afternoon of conceptual art had begun there and then, on the train to London, sitting next to this passenger with her penchant for orange peel.  (I've never seen anyone do that before, have you?)  Following that I was party to one half of a phone conversation in which the caller, seated opposite me, unashamedly declared her admiration for none other than the odious Nigel Farage.  She looked and sounded not unlike Waynetta Slob, and was excited to share her self-proclaimed brilliant and feasible idea that Farage and Starmer could collaborate and "run the country together, as they'd probably get on".  See what I mean - conceptual art, surely?!

But on to the real thing...  I was on that train to London earlier this week to meet my lovely cousin and we'd decided to visit the Yoko Ono exhibition, 'Music Of The Mind', at Tate Modern. 

I knew very little about Yoko Ono's art until now, having only really scratched the surface (the 'Cut Piece' film, the footage of  her and John's honeymoon 'Bed-In', and her vocal improvisations with the Plastic Ono Band) but came away with a mind full of her various playful, political, thought-provoking and dreamlike ideas.  There are lots of interactive elements to this exhibition too - some lovely ways for you to leave your own mark on it, literally (a favourite of mine being Shadow Piece, a white wall onto which a bright light casts your shadow, so you can draw around it with a nice chunk of graphite.  Now several months into the show, the wall is covered in a beautiful tangled mass of curving pencil lines, and it feels special to be one of its many contributors). Or you can hammer a nail into a wall - as long as you're prepared for the trade-off to be a hair from your head.  Why? I hear you ask - ah, so you can be a part of this...

PAINTING TO HAMMER A NAIL

Hammer a nail into a mirror, a piece of

glass, a canvas, wood or metal every

morning.  Also, pick up a hair that came

off when you combed in the morning and

tie it around the hammered nail. The

painting ends when the surface is covered

with nails.

1961 winter

Some might say it's a load of arty-farty bollocks, I know.  I may have done once too.  But when you enter this exhibition, if you keep your mind open, and then maybe stretch it open even further, you can just enjoy a chance to think in a different way for a while.  Yoko Ono's way.   I think this is perhaps no better exemplified than in her 'Instructions' pieces, like the one above.  Simply presented in both typewritten English and  tiny handwritten Japanese characters, to me these really sum up the Conceptual Art movement, where the concept itself is the art, rather than a realisation of it. It kind of messes with my head but - it feels good, like discovering a secret chamber somewhere deep in my mind, I'm sure I might find some treasures in there I didn't know I had.    I found these pieces inspiring, sometimes funny, often philosophical, and I'm sure I'm not alone in wanting to try a few out.  Maybe like this mischievous one? 

CONVERSATION PIECE

Bandage any part of your body.

If people ask about it, make a story

and tell.

If people do not ask about it, remind

them of it and keep telling.

Do not talk about anything else.

1962 summer

Or maybe not...

BLOOD PIECE

Use your blood to paint.

Keep painting until you faint (a)

Keep painting until you die (b)

1960 spring

There are many more moving, serious installations too.  A single gunshot hole in a piece of glass with an invitation to go to the other side and see through it needs no further explanation.  Everything here seemed to have an element of hope about it, though.  It was also great to see some lovely early photos, film, fascinating ephemera, music with various collaborators too (a John Cage piece did wonders for my tinnitus) and even - brace yourself - some 'actual' drawings too, in the form of Yoko's pleasingly delicate pen and ink images, which I really like (apologies for poor quality photos):

Yoko Ono was 91 this year and has been creating and performing for seven decades, how on earth do you cover everything?  I don't know, but I'm glad to have seen this comprehensive selection while she's still around, and a lot of it will stay in my mind for some time, which I wasn't necessarily expecting.  

See more at https://www.tate.org.uk/whats-on/tate-modern/yoko-ono/exhibition-guide

Free games for May

Sorry, sorry, sorry!  I've been terribly bad at keeping up with things but I am still here. Just spending fewer prolonged periods in front of a screen these days - and still don't seem to have enough time to do everything I want to do!  I've been on a bit of a creative trip to destinations unknown lately which has only served to confirm my suspicions that I am and always have been very much an analog girl.  In spite of that, blogging remains the source of such interest, pleasure and especially lovely connections that I really don't want to lose it, so I must put some effort in!

While I was out yesterday, my mind joined my feet in an aimless meander and I was reminded of how sometimes in my more prolific blogging moments I enjoyed taking you for a walk with me and I thought, perhaps I can actually get writing about that again? 

Come on, come with me!

We can go down beyond the main thoroughfare of the village and then turn off from the hub-bub of traffic to find ourselves in a quiet lane.  I adore this route, especially at this time of year.  We'll wander past the low roofed chapel now converted into a house, the backs of gardens of a red bricked Victorian terrace and then the human formalities start to give way to wild verges.  I always was a little drawn to the wilder verges of life.  This one would appear to be very attractive to cats too.

Then, well, it's blissful. There are meadows either side and you can smell and hear an English May without even looking; the heady scent of new blossom and cow parsley, an orchestra of insects, a symphony of lusty birdsong.  Wren, blackbird, robin, chiffchaff.  I get a funny (in a good way) feeling when I'm out like this - it must be connected to childhood memories, I'm sure.  I find the timelessness of it incredibly evocative, deep-rooted and uplifting - does it do something to the brain perhaps and induce a dopamine high?  For me it's as intoxicating as any physical substance, and I can still walk in a straight line.

The lane runs alongside a tributary and down to a weir but we won't go that far today, instead just take in the view of the lane and bridge curving around, the shadows of trees striating the road. 

If we were to carry on we could cross a couple of fields of cowpats (probably some cows too) and find one of those WWII pill boxes - this area of East Anglian countryside was one of the most heavily fortified in the country.  Defence lines of pillboxes, anti-tank blocks, deep ditches and barbed wire were drawn across the landscape to obstruct armoured columns which were expected to move inland should they manage to breach the ports and beaches.  I try to imagine how it must have felt living in such a rural and sparsely populated environment then, far removed from the cities, yet with these constant reminders of the possibility of invasion. But being here today it's so peaceful, whatever else is still sadly going on in the world in a similar vein, and I just can't.  Instead I'm lucky - lost in the sensory escapism of nature and my cherry-picked memories of perfect dappled riverbanks and bike rides and buttercups.  

For the return journey we can take a little detour past the allotments.  Say hello to the chickens and some ruddy-cheeked men in checked shirts discussing their cucumbers and on to the Village Hall.  There's a Book Fair here today - £1 to get in - how could you resist?   Mmm, the smell of old books, comics, postcards, maps....the smell of the hall itself, all coffee and floor polish and sunshine on curtains.  The low murmur of people enthusing about their stamp collections and Rupert annuals.  It's all rather lovely, a safe space for us nerdier members of the species.  And I'm drawn to so many items!  I come away with just this one, utterly enticed by its kitschness.

Heading home now we can pass this noble doorstep guardian

this old street grit bin which I really like for some weird reason

and take a couple of photos which I won't show here because instead I'll be sending them to John for his monthly photo challenge post!

Then dive back into the shade of trees and across the wooden footbridge over another part of the tributary which is looking particularly photogenic today.  An older man stops for a chat and talks about how he used to swim in there as a young lad, having lived here all his life. The resident swans will swim down here soon too, with cygnets to follow, hopefully.

At the bottom of the hill there's the young lad I often see with his skateboard. He's never with anyone else but is so obviously into his board and honing his skills on the tarmac path outside the big house.  I've often thought perhaps he's a bit of a loner, a little geeky, a little outside of the mainstream as he's always alone, practising, practising, not looking up.  But this time - oh, he has a girl with him!  A sweet-looking girl with an angelic face and a coy demeanour; he's holding her hand as she tries to keep her balance on the skateboard, gently encouraging her.  He looks over and for the first time he smiles.  I don't even know this lad but, well, I'm feeling all chuffed for him!

Onward up the hill and there's something alien hiding behind this hedge which makes me smile (turns out it's a small digger)

And just in case you need a further boost there are resources at hand a few doors up...

But sometimes I reckon a good walk can give you just the high you need.

"...you'll lose your mind and play

 free games for May..."