The song retains the name #1

Oh dear, another terrible title for a post but, yes: another series!  Here's a game that everyone can play - and probably already has done, many times, in which case sorry for any repetition.  I'm not going to look it up and find out who, where or what results anyone came up with if they did, though, because that would just spoil a planned series as well as my fun - and I need a little excitement in my life.

So, this has been partly inspired by a run of posts over at the excellent blog Charity Chic Music, where our cordial host shared songs which name-checked an artist alongside a track by said artist.  For example, this one.  However, it was also partly inspired by spotting a low flying drone (ugh) hovering over the field on my way to the Post Office the other day.

I saw the drone... mentally stuck two fingers up at it (actually I should have done that for real) and then went on a rambly mind journey because of it, and en route I stopped at the Mancunian punk band the Drones, who I think I've only ever heard on the 'Short Circuit: Live At The Electric Circus' compilation album (nice 10", blue vinyl).  They shared the bill with the Fall and Joy Division, John Cooper Clarke, Buzzcocks and Steel Pulse - very 1978.  Anyway, as the drone in the sky disappeared over the hedge into the Old School car park, my thoughts continued up the musical highway and led straight to a single I'd heard last year by band FIDLAR (trendy capital letters, skate punk genre I believe), as it was indeed entitled Drone.  Does sound a bit like the Drones too, funnily enough.  My next rumination was perhaps only to be expected: the Drones / Drone... oh, I wonder how many other band names also happen to be song titles (and vice versa)?  Surely there must be a few?  So then Charity Chic's series came to mind, but with that being about lyrical name checks hopefully this is different enough not to be considered plagiarism, and could stretch to a few new posts here.

So now I have a couple of notebook pages full of scribbled down band names/song titles that are the same.  I'd love you to play along too if you haven't already exhausted a similar list yourself before - but I'm going to be mean and ask that you please don't tell me what you've come up with... at least not yet...because what has been read can't be unread and remember what I said earlier about excitement?

Now I just hope I can locate the various tracks I want to include, and if I do this series could run into double figures, which will be a first.

Let's kick off!  Here are a couple of obvious ones, but nonetheless they are corkers.  We have Bernard Cribbins with the song 'Right Said Fred' and then of course the band Right Said Fred... with 'I'm Too Sexy'.

OH NO, WE DON'T!

But we do have these:

Edwin Starr: War

War: The World Is A Ghetto


(please click on links to play)

Waspish

I’ve been getting myself all worked up about wasps.  Thankfully I’ve never had a bad experience with them; I was stung once, on the face, when I didn’t realise what was tickling me and I unwittingly rubbed it against my skin.  It was a big shock and hurt like hell, but I got over it quickly and if I was a wasp I’m sure I’d have done the same in the circumstances.

I’d rather keep on-side with these beautiful, fascinating little creatures and I’m always saving them from drowning in the bird bath by fishing them out gently on a leaf.  In return, they’ve kindly decided to nest under the gutter of our single storey kitchen, right next to our back door.  

But it's not their close proximity which is getting to me.  I’ve learned so much about them since they decided to take residence here.   For instance, I hadn’t realised before that the first male wasps you see in the Summer – the drones – don’t even have stings.  Neither do they feed or hunt close to their nest for fear of attracting predators, so they fly off over the rooftops and far beyond to do so.  And neither have they been feeding on the contents of picnic boxes and orange juice all these weeks so far, instead they do their bit for the environment by clearing gardens and agricultural fields of pests like caterpillars and greenfly;  thus they, like all insects, are an incredibly important part of the food-chain – truly beneficial pest-controllers themselves.  So really the wasps and me are co-habiting very peacefully.  Their flight path crosses my daily commuting route to my Shedio – a journey of a few steps I make many times a day - we bump into each other frequently, and neither of us comes to any harm.  I’ll feel the soft touch of one against my face, my bare arms and shoulders, sometimes even in my hair, and then it flies off.  They really aren’t in the least bit interested in me - far too busy.

What concerns me is that the way I think may be out of step with much of the rest of the world.  I guess it's always felt a bit that way, so I’m used to it, but that doesn’t make it any easier to deal with, when you find  your views at odds with the mainstream.  My tolerance of a wasp nest attached to my home possibly makes me appear weird, only one step removed from an old lady who keeps fifty-three  cats in her one-bedroom house and lets them shit all over her furniture. 

At least I’m not completely alone when it comes to giving positive PR to wasps, as well as other creepy, crawly, much-maligned creatures with more than two legs; I’m in the esteemed company of naturalists like Steve Backshall and Chris Packham (who famously let wasps lick jam off his young daughter’s face).   I just don’t have their authority, confidence or charisma to convince others with a more sceptical view to adopt a similar approach.  If only Steve or Chris lived next door (…I would never get any work done).

This would all be less worrying if it wasn't for the fact that the neighbouring house is let out to holiday-makers in the Summer.  Couples come here to relax in the garden and enjoy the peacefulness of the countryside.  I doubt they'd choose to stay right next to a wasp’s nest, one that's very close to their back door too; likewise I can't expect everyone to like it.  Although I can write here like the ambassador for a wasp preservation society, I don’t have faith in myself articulating it in person to a disgruntled guest… my worry is that it’s only a matter of time before I’m confronted.

However, it’s also only a matter of time before the resident wasps all die off naturally, apart from a small number of individual fertilized queens who will depart to quietly hibernate over winter before forming new colonies elsewhere next year.  They will leave an empty nest behind and I can block up the hole without harming a single one.  Sorted – at least in my ideal world.  The problem comes when the dying workers get a bit chippy as their lives come to an end, and seek sustenance from sweet things - the contents of picnic boxes and orange juice -  which will make them act a little drunkenly.  In theory these resident wasps are likely to do their final feeding well away from here, away from their nest, but I'm sure the presence of any tipsy wasps in the neighbour's garden will still be attributed to it.  The flapping arms of panicky people will aggravate them and the risk of stinging becomes a reality and of course I understand the fear of a wasp sting and the concern about allergic reaction.  Theoretically the best thing may be to leave them alone,  adapt and tolerate them for this short period and soon all but the queens will be dead anyway, but that’s quite a difficult point to argue when faced with traditional fears and attitudes.  It seems so much of the time that the human response to something we don't fully understand is to want to destroy it.

So any time now I won't be surprised if I'm asked to “deal with” the wasps - it’s the thought of having to deal with dealing with them which is making me anxious.  I just hope we can all make it through until the last, hazy, natural, dying days of both Summer and wasps, in peace.

Vegan Bonnets to play Bestival!

Umm.  It’s been a while - I'm sorry!   My intention to write something halfway meaningful when I finally got round to actually writing anything at all again has gone to the wall, and it may be a while yet.   Oh, I’ve tried, but the words won’t come.  So instead I’ve been spending half an hour or so of an evening these last few weeks looking for them.  And I found some!  I found them online, in a game of Word Link!   

Maybe you know it, a classic test of one’s linguistic prowess (erm, sort of) based on a grid of random letter tiles…  you just have to connect ones that touch each other to try and form as many words as possible. You can increase your score by using special coloured tiles which pop up in each round too.  Fast as you can go… clicking away… it’s not usually too hard to find plenty of three letter words once you get in the swing of it, but it’s especially good when you can form much longer ones, or use up a pesky Q, J or Z for instance, which have higher values than a run-of-the-mill T or A, etc.  I've also noticed  you can get away with both English/US spellings, slang and expletives (it has to be said, 'wanky' usually scores well).

At the end of three minutes the bell rings, a load of fruit falls out out of the sky and the little monkey in a loincloth looks decidedly happy (maybe you have to be there).  Then you find out which two words scored (a) the most points by value and (b) used the most letters.  Like:

Most valuable word: VEGAN

Longest word: BONNETS

And then if you’re like me, you look at those two words at the end of each game and every now and then you think: ha, that could be the name of a band, and you jot it down in the back of your notebook for no other reason than you just like the sound of it and the thought of a band with that name playing at next year's Bestival, or maybe the Exeter Phoenix.  Next thing you know, you don't really care about your final score any more, you just want to play with your new random band name generator.  I'm reminded of those other name generators - like finding your porn star persona by combining the name of your first pet and your mother's maiden name, and the John Peel band name one I remember reading about - take the name of a charity and follow it with a parent's job.  (Mind Cleaner surely should have really existed?)

Thus several games of Word Link later and according to my notebook, it looks as if the Vegan Bonnets are going to be on the same line-up as a number of other interesting sounding acts, such as:

Zee Queens

Jingo Jingo

Cash Reborn (must be a tribute band)

Vox Quarry

Yeti Diners

Ham Panda

Zen Jello
and 

Quim Slings (sorry, but it let me have that so it counts)

I would book my tickets now...

Random access memory #4

The Summer of 1978 seemed a strange, transitional time, musically as well as personally.  I’d just turned 15 and punk was rapidly becoming my main thing, but there was so much still at odds with it.   For instance, I was never going to hear it down the little fortnightly disco at the cricket pavilion (unless you counted the Boomtown Rats), yet I still went that Summer, and I still danced.  My friends and I went to see 'Grease'; we wore our Jam badges, we giggled at John Travolta.  It shouldn’t have been our kind of film but there’s no denying, we enjoyed it.  The boys we fancied rode Yamaha FS1Es and only the most daring of them had an ear pierced.   I’d ventured into what seemed like the dark, adult realm of Sex Pistols and safety pins,  but the residue of the pre-punk, blue eye-shadow, strawberry lipgloss, Starsky & Hutch fan still lingered in me and my world.  I owned a plastic belt with the Coca-Cola logo all over it and a razorblade necklace.

Anyway, there was this song.  I really liked it, but the thing was - it wasn’t punk, it was disco.   Disco seemed to be at the opposite end of the spectrum to punk then.  Discos - proper big discos in town, I mean, not our cut price cricket pavilion ones - were full of cliques of mean girls and the sort of blokes who'd beat up anyone in straight trousers.  But still I liked this song - it had a relentless bass-line and a nagging chorus with a lyric that was so not my thing;  we’re gonna boogie oogie oogie ‘til we just can’t boogie no more. 

Haha, do you remember it too?!

Well I’d forgotten all about it until I came across a UK singles chart list from July 1978 the other day and then got mildly obsessed with it and the memories it evoked: Boogie Oogie Oogie (the clue was in the lyric) by A Taste Of Honey.    That week in the charts, You’re the One That I Want was No 1,  and the Smurf Song was No. 2.    A few places down there was quite a diverse mix of artists, in fact it seems weird to think of it now as I wouldn't have remembered them being in the same timeframe: James Galway, Showaddywaddy, Lindisfarne, Boney M, Renaissance, ELO.   Then further down – in the 30s -  it got really quite cool and definitely up my street with Buzzcocks, Sham 69, Xray Spex and Steel Pulse.  With all that going on, Boogie Oogie Oogie was not a song I “should” have favoured at all.

But memories of it, like so many things, are inextricably linked to the personal landscapes they inhabit, and I can’t separate this song from a week in July 1978 spent in Sussex on a Geography field trip with my school year.   Like something from the (wonderful) Please Sir! film, it was that peculiar marriage of school life and away-from-home freedom.  It was a week of giggling fits (those truly painful ones, when your lungs feel as if they're going to burst through your ribcage), of  bags of Chipsticks smuggled in satchels for midnight feasting, of sneaking out of places we should have been and sneaking into places we shouldn’t, the covert smoking of Rothmans in the woods, ghost stories and glow-worms, packed lunches and sunburn, and seeing teachers drinking beer. Well, you know, I’m sure.   

Boogie Oogie Oogie always seemed to be playing on the little radio my schoolgirl friends and I took into our accommodation block, a long wooden chalet with greasy windows.  It was next door to one with German students, both male and female, who reportedly wandered around in it with no clothes on and weren’t embarrassed.  Oh, those liberal Europeans!

That month, I bought Buzzcocks Love You More.  I’d never have bought Boogie Oogie Oogie. 

What I didn’t realise at the time, though, was just how cool the two front women from A Taste Of Honey were.  The single peaked at No. 3 in the charts here, and while I remember hearing it all the time I don’t recall ever seeing any footage of them - I'm sure I’d have been so chuffed to see them play their guitars.   So, finding this performance below was quite a treat, even if it is nearly 40 years too late.  That smiling confidence, the fast funky bass, the bendy guitar solos (there’s a kind of Isley Brothers sound coming out of that Stratocaster).  Even if you don’t like the song, I promise you the way they play their instruments is a joy to watch.  

Plus they were right, lyrically - weren't they?!

If you're thinkin' you're too cool to boogie

Boy, oh boy, have I got news for you

Everybody here tonight must boogie

Let me tell ya, you are no exception to the rule.

The graveyard shift

Something dawned on me recently; it’s probably blindingly obvious to most people but for some reason it hadn’t been to me until that moment.   I was taking a short cut through the churchyard and casually observing the gravestones standing there, like a small crowd of quiet, still people, when it suddenly struck me that that's exactly what they are. 

A small crowd of quiet, still people:  neighbours, friends, strangers;  old, young and in-between; shopkeepers and factory workers; families grouped together  - like a gathering at a village fête.    Although I’m not religious, the significance of headstones suddenly registered in a whole new way, and I found it kind of comforting.  I saw the graveyard in a different light, like a place full of life rather than death.

The local graveyard

Then last month I was down at the City of London Cemetery again and the analogy really hit home.  It’s huge.  The 'population' of headstones is more like a large town than a gathering at a village fête - there are 150,000 graves there.

It’s the biggest of its kind in the UK – set in 200 acres of grounds (I can never picture quite what an acre actually is, but someone told me it’s roughly the size of a football pitch).  It also has 7 miles of roadway intersecting its vast parks and gardens, and 5 chapels.  You might imagine there are quite a few notable characters buried there but a little research didn’t produce many names – although I did find two of Jack the Ripper’s victims and Bobby Moore’s ashes.  The enormous variety of the memorials – the humble, weathered stones alongside some contrastingly new and really quite blingy structures, the assortment  of different traits, cultures, tastes and religions of the people beneath expressed in their monuments – well, they looked just the same to me as the shoppers I’d walked amid earlier on an East London street and the passengers on the platform at Liverpool St. Station.  I suppose it’s obvious when I put it like that.  Anyway, there’s definitely something about this correlation that I find uplifting: the inanimate representations of all those diverse human beings now mingling so peacefully in the cemetery.  If only we could always be so peaceful in life. 

---

I had to take a taxi to the station on the way to help clear my aunt and uncle’s house (both now buried in the above mentioned City of London Cemetery, in a serene, woodland area, unmarked by memorials but represented fittingly by the wildness of nature) and was chatting to the cab driver about the task ahead.  He’d had to do the same thing himself with an aunt’s belongings not long beforehand.  “She’d never married nor lived with anyone and had no other family,” he explained, “but she kept a lot of stuff!”   

It’s strange when you sift through someone’s most personal and intimate possessions, isn’t it?  In some ways you can feel like a voyeur, an imposter.  So Cab Driver and I talked about that, and how a lot is changing now, as so much of what we'll leave behind in the future – photos, music collections, documents, even contact details for friends - may only be accessible via our hard drives and phones… passwords permitting.  There's something to bear in mind!  Anyway, up in the attic amid his aunt’s general paraphernalia, he'd found an old suitcase.  It was closed tight, and for extra security bound crossways with thick string like a parcel.  Attached to it was a hand-written note:

  ‘Please destroy after my death.  Not to be opened’

“Ooh!  I wonder what was in it… did you ever find out?” I asked.  But Cab Driver was an honourable  man and had followed his aunt's instructions without even taking a sneaky peek.

So, what could have been in there?  Secret letters from a forbidden lover, perhaps?  That was my first and favourite thought.  Or perhaps documents relating to an illegitimate child?  Or even evidence from an unsolved crime?  Or maybe just a private collection of….. well…  what?!

I'm tempted to do the same myself, just to bring some old-fashioned mystique to the proceedings when the time comes. 

Homage

I hope you’re all well!   My apologies to those whose  blogs I usually visit regularly and have neglected  but life has pulled me in other directions lately and I’m appreciating a little break from the online life.   Real life is quite enough, sometimes.

I never wanted this blog to be a place for too much sorrow or self-pity, so it’s with some reluctance that I mention today something that is undoubtedly sad (sorry).  At the same time I just need to put it out there.  I can’t quite believe it; less than five months after the distressing loss of my dear friend Andy, I’m trying to process the recent news about the death of another, Dale - one which came as a complete shock and has now left me feeling a little numb.  Oddly enough, both these lovely men were born in the same month of the same year, and were both artists, their work exciting, individual, often controversial, full of energy and spark.  Whilst very different characters, with each of them I had a quite extraordinary, low-maintenance, one-to-one connection and understanding,  never searched for but instead stumbled upon serendipitously, the kind which is really quite rare and therefore precious.    I even introduced them to each other once - isn't life strange?!  But I’ve never been one for lots of friends – having always favoured quality over quantity (!) - and I am so sad to have lost two such loved ones in so short a space of time. 

That said, both inspired me with their optimism and selflessness – both of them clearly wished to spare their friends the worry and pain of what they were going through - and it feels wrong to write here in anything other than a humbled tone.  The last email I had from Dale, just weeks before his death, was full of positive thoughts about the future and made no mention of the cancer which had already taken hold.  I was oblivious.

By way of lifting this a little, let me revisit something I wrote about Dale on this blog some while ago, although I never mentioned his name at the time.....  I'm sure he wouldn't mind.

----

My dear friend has a memorable way of describing himself, which is: “great at art, shit at life”. He can drink three bottles of Cabernet Sauvignon and still walk in a straight line, plus he has the energy of someone half his age, but he's the kind who forgets he's left a bath running and, on discovering the flood, decides to let it soak into the floor because he's “going out”. Somehow he gets through life relatively unscathed, surviving on creativity, charisma and an occasionally misplaced degree of optimism; I think he may also have superpowers.  I've never known anyone like him and his chaotic life has left me breathless at times.

Before he moved away to another town, we used to meet quite often for a natter about art.  Well: art, people, life, the universe and all its contents. I sat on his sagging sofa, surrounded by dozens of pieces of his striking (and frequently controversial) work, which filled every available space in his living-room-cum-studio. We drank wine in the afternoon out of chipped mugs, and I kept my coat on in Winter when he couldn't afford to feed the electricity meter for heating. I listened to tales of his latest unrequited love and money woes, stories you wouldn't believe... or wouldn't want to... yet he always rode through his problems with admirable positivity.  The wine (for there was always enough money for that kind of juice, if not the other) was often, almost ritualistically, accompanied by Maltesers, served in a ceramic dish. When the dodgy cassette player was actually working, he'd play secondhand tapes found in charity shops; it could be Henry Mancini one day and Happy Mondays the next.  Sometimes we went out - one time I took him to an exhibition of Syd Barrett's paintings at my old college (which was also Syd's); he was perfect company.  He's also the only person I've known who's left the house in odd shoes; perhaps the same could have been said of Syd...?!

----

Here is a tiny piece of collage art (only a few inches square) that he gave me several years ago:

I Didn't Mean For You To See Me Cry Miss Moneypenny

and a more recent 3D work entitled 'Angel':

(See some more of his work in this post too: Travels in East Anglia )

In loving memory of my two dear friends, 2016.  

A pop up post

Just too good not to share!

Gallic-sounding dreamy bossa nova ye-ye pop electro psych by Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve (terrible name!) - from Richard Norris and Erol Alkan, with Jane Weaver and Hannah Peel on vocals - and a video that makes you feel like you've just stumbled into an episode of The Avengers.  I thought you might like it!

See you soon.

Beyond The Wizard's Sleeve: Creation

- Intermission -

Life has got a bit on top of me lately; hope to be back soon.