A voyage of rediscovery

The yellow label.  A plain white paper sleeve.  Black type in sans serif font and a little logo at the top…  names and numbers and things I didn’t understand.  Whilst I’ve often waxed lyrical about the hours spent poring over the 12” cardboard album sleeves of my youth, meticulously exploring the artwork and the unknown song titles, it’s easy to overlook the simple thrill of a first 7” single purchase.  Not just the music, not just the fact that you could bring a song you'd only previously heard on the radio or on Top Of The Pops directly into your living room and access it any time of your choosing – but that very specific, peculiar pleasure to be found in every detail of its physical form. 

It was the Summer of ’76, I’d just turned 13.  With a pounding heart and my pocket money savings in my turquoise purse, I went into Boots the Chemist where there was a little space right at the back of the shop selling records, and I bought Dancing Queen by ABBA.  The yellow label and even the fact that it had a plain white paper sleeve, they're indelibly stamped on my mind… and then, ohh, the grooves of joy in that small shiny slab of black vinyl.   I was so excited!

I think my copy was very slightly warped – weirdly not badly enough to mar the song for me, but just giving it the merest hint of distortion which then became the norm to my ears.  When I hear it now, I rather miss that imperfection, that split second dip in speed in each revolution.   The sound was somewhat tinny too, but it didn’t matter one bit.  I loved Dancing Queen, it made me feel happy, uplifted.  I loved this band of exotic Swedes who had brought it to my TV screen on Thursday nights - they were grown-up and glamorous, but they had a special accessibility.  The song, alongside their image, their presence, just spoke to 13 year old girls like me. 

Just around the corner, punk was looming its head.  Punk found me when I was truly ready to rebel, pissed off with school, seeking refuge for my ever-present ‘outsider’ feelings, needing an outlet for my inner dissenter.   Stranglers, Generation X, Buzzcocks and more filled out my little 7” singles box, I studied their different labels, their exciting picture sleeves, I buzzed to their fuzz guitars.  But, before all that, before the drastic haircut, black eyeliner and a graffitied school tie, I was a double denim (or triple, if you count the waistcoat), Charlie perfume, blue eyeshadow,  ABBA fan - as so many of us were.  And still are?  Well, not the double denim, etc. – but their songs, their classiness, their story – it’s stayed with us somewhere deep down.  So it'll be strange and otherwordly, I'm sure, but I'm really looking forward to rediscovering my inner 13 year old in just under two weeks' time, when I go down to London to see the ABBA Voyage show.  And, hopefully, it'll be just as memorable as that very first single purchase 46 years ago…. 

I shall let you know!

Yes, I know it's so familiar, but, oh go on... 

Stop gap

 Argh!  Sorry.  The dust is gathering, the cobwebs billowing in the corners, the mould starting to creep up the walls – I don’t think this blog has ever been quite so neglected.  I’m absolutely fine (in case you read my last post and were wondering) just working rather relentlessly, pretty much 7 days a week, to meet a lengthy project deadline (nearly there).  I’ve had a couple of brilliant days off and thankfully got out and about, but I seem to need a certain sort of home alone, quiet and relaxed time to sit down - without anything else nagging at or distracting me - to write anything meaningful or inspired.  Seems I just haven’t had enough of those opportunities.  I don’t know how others do it (nor how I ever did it in the past), do you have any tips? 

Anyway, this is just to break the silence…  and to push myself to be back in a more communicative mode soon!

Under pressure

I had a bit of a funny turn the other week and, to be honest, it rather freaked me out.  Coming on without any warning, something weird suddenly happened to my eyesight, as if my field of vision had narrowed, and I could only make out vague, indeterminate blobs.   Scary.  Oh god, I thought - a stroke?  an aneurysm? the start of a new life as a blind person? - should I get a guide dog? - you can imagine, it all went through my mind.  After a minute or two, panicky and crouching on the kitchen floor for fear I was going to faint or fall anyway, the featureless blobs gradually reverted to relatable forms, and my brain's ‘adjust sharpness’ and ‘brightness/contrast’ controls slowly kicked back in. 

After a chat with a nurse and a doctor, it seems the culprit could be low blood pressure, but also there’s a question mark now over blood sugar, so I’m awaiting some blood tests next week. (Sorry about all this blood stuff.)  They’re checking for diabetes! I don't feel like an obvious contender for it - on the slim side, healthy eater, don't smoke - but there have been a couple of cases in my family - so, could it be in the genes?  Well, I know, it's best to find out.

Fortunately I feel ok, although occasionally a bit light-headed, so I'm on a mission to raise my blood pressure. Reading about the government helps, of course, but I'm not one to pick fights with the neighbours and I don’t read the Daily Mail so my other options are a little limited.  But drinking plenty of water raises it apparently, so I'm guzzling my way through a lot of it - my stomach just makes a lapping sound when I walk now.

Things always happen at once, though, don't they?  Not that it was serious in the grand scheme of things but a few days after that scare my dental bridge fell out (now temporarily fixed with what the dentist called 'fruit-flavoured' cement - I presume it wasn't just a strip of Juicy Fruit chewing-gum).  Some folk can look rakeish with a missing tooth but it really doesn't suit me...   And then, I caught and jammed my toe (which was naked at the time) on the edge of a very unforgiving stone step.  My little toe. The cute one! The "wee wee wee, all the way home" one.  Never mind wee, wee, wee, I was more like fuck, fuck, fuck, it hurt so much for such a small body part (and the black and blue bruising that later spanned the top of my foot really didn't go well with my turquoise toenail varnish) and I was concerned for a while that I had fractured it.

Oh well, not that it's an excuse for not blogging, but it's just felt like one of those periods when there's been other stuff to think about, unexpected appointments to attend and, perhaps most of all, just time to take the pressure off myself a little.  Whilst trying to raise it too...

Here's a song which immediately sprang to mind!

As you'll know, there are many versions of this but I'll throw in the original as well:

A matter of death and life (part two - life!)

I must say there is nothing quite like the comfort of a good hotel bed.  (Where do they get their pillows?  So perfectly plump and firm!)  The kind of bed where you should be able to slip under the fresh clean duvet, fall asleep instantly and have glorious dreams for the next eight hours….   But I didn’t.  I lay awake for ages.  So many thoughts, images, feelings were jostling for attention in my brain, refusing to form an orderly queue or to go away and come back in the morning.  And this was only the first night!

Earlier that day I’d boarded a sleek, new (and very exotic sounding) Azuma train and travelled 400 miles northward.  Having not been on a train these last two years the experience felt strangely new again.  I mean, even a visit to the onboard space age circular loo seemed a glamorous excursion.   All silver and symbols and sensory controls, I half expected to see the lovely Lieutenant Uhura waiting outside when I emerged. 

But the views from the train window were most definitely earthly and I loved the way the landscape changed from the flatlands of home to… ooh, hills!  And rocky outcrops!  Towns and cities I’ve never visited teased me with momentary flashes of their most striking assets.  The bridges spanning the Tyne…  Peterborough and Durham Cathedrals piercing the skyline…York Minster too.   Quirkier things as well, the curious ‘Mallard’ sign… 

And I’m pretty sure I let out an audible gasp at my first sight of the sea which, in spite of it being named the ‘East Coast Main Line’, still somehow took me by surprise.  It was like that feeling I had as a child en route to a seaside holiday, the excitement at turning a corner and suddenly seeing what seemed like a magical ocean at the edge of the world.  I know, I’m romanticising, it was a rather chilly looking steel-grey North Sea.  But still…

Eight hours after leaving home that morning, I was disembarking at Edinburgh Waverley Station – amazingly my very first trip over the border into Scotland - to be greeted by our lovely blog pal, Alyson.   It was great to see her familiar face; we had met up just once before in London and felt then as if we’d known each other for ages.  And that’s the beautiful thing about blogging, the way strangers can connect, get a sense of understanding and camaraderie, just through what we express, and how…  but more on that later.  As if I hadn’t been excited enough by the journey, there was so much yet to come – a few more people to meet, some for the first time, others to reconnect with, places to see,  music to hear (not just the bagpipes on the Royal Mile which take busking to a whole new level), tales to be shared, drinks to be consumed – naturally - and hugs (hugs at last!)  to be had…  A long-awaited bloggers’ ‘mini-meet’ had finally, appropriately, come together in this beautiful city. No wonder I didn’t sleep very well that night... my senses were most definitely working overtime.

More in part three.

A matter of death and life (part one)

What a week it’s been…

The phone call from the hospital came last Sunday afternoon and we knew that a long and difficult saga was drawing to a close.  My dear old mum-in-law’s health had been deteriorating both mentally and physically for the last couple of years, so it wasn’t unexpected.  We saw her for the final time on Sunday evening, short of breath and unresponsive, but there was a peacefulness about her too and I like to think she was still somehow aware of the familiar voices and comforting touch, and perhaps they helped her to just let go.  Still, feisty to the last, she hung on for one more night and then finally went on Monday afternoon.

Well, my mum-in-law has made an appearance on this blog before and now seems a good time to remind myself of that.  I mean, she was the mother of an anarcho-punk guitarist with an occasional penchant for black nail varnish, whose girlfriend used to turn up at their home from the bus in a pink velvet jacket and leopard spot trousers… she was bound to pick up on some rock’n’roll trivia!  Proof came many years later, when she was in her 80s, and Mr SDS spotted her filling in a crossword puzzle with the letters:  M  O  T  O  R  H  E  A  D .  The clue was simply ‘Lemmy’s rock band’…   

We naturally started to harbour secret suspicions that, tucked away amid the kitten ornaments and well-thumbed copies of the TV Times, there might be a copy of ‘No Sleep ‘Til Hammersmith’.  Not only that we thought but, perhaps carefully disguised within a Tom Jones album cover, there would also be an original issue of ‘Piper At The Gates Of Dawn’, after we noticed this completed puzzle page:

 

(It's not very clear but the box on the right has the clue ‘Pink Floyd founder, ____ Barrett’)

Anyway, here’s to my mum-in-law Eileen, who lived a long and happy life in the same little village where she’d spent her childhood.  She loved her crosswords and her fish’n’chips, and was so generous with the bulging bags of crisps, chocolates and biscuits that she gave us every Christmas that we probably still have a few packets of Jammy Dodgers and onion rings left in the back of the cupboard from 2006…   I fondly remember the early days of getting to know her when she’d feed us with Findus Crispy Pancakes (the cheesy ones) and the best home-made date cake I’ve ever tasted.  RIP Eileen.

Unfortunately, therefore, it wasn’t the best timing that the morning after she died I was due to be travelling 400 miles and staying away in Edinburgh until the Friday, but it was for a brief yet exciting adventure that had been 2 years in the waiting, and Mr SDS wouldn’t have wanted me to miss it.  It felt strange to leave him home alone at such a time, but at least we could communicate by phone and it was only for a few days.  And what a few days!  From thinking and talking so much about death at that moment, I was lucky enough to go off for a fantastic new experience in the loveliest of company (which you may soon, if not already, be reading about elsewhere) and it was at the opposite end of the spectrum: positively life-affirming.

More on that in part two!

In the meantime, what’s it gonna be?  Motörhead or Tom Jones?  Oh, go on, let’s have a bit of both…

Tom Jones: I Gotta Know (1964)

Motörhead: Live To Win (1980)

Connected and more

 Oh god, I had forgotten how good it could feel.  It’s been a while!

But last night, after a couple of years without any, the visceral and emotional pleasure of experiencing live music again felt even more special than I’d expected.  It was positively life-affirming.  And it was practically in my back garden!

Ah, what a lovely evening.  Against a clear blue sky the sun slowly descended into a horizon studded with ancient trees and an elegant church spire; on the other side of the gently sloping field the turrets of the stately home hosting the event glowed in vivid pink illumination.  It’s an absolutely beautiful setting for a tiny music festival and incredibly for me it’s only a two minute saunter from my front door (a crow could fly there in a few seconds).  I could hear the bands sound-checking through the kitchen window earlier.

But to be there, in amongst it – it’s that thing, isn’t it, of sharing the joy, the atmosphere, the whatever-it-is that live music gives you which is hard to describe – with your fellow human beings, hence my use of the term life-affirming.  With no pressure on us and a couple of tickets bought ages ago, my friend and I wandered down for our prescription of festival elixir just in time to catch the three bands we were most keen to see.  This being a very small, inexpensive event, it tends to host artists who’ve been around a while (or who’ve gone away and come back), you know the kind of thing.  But no prejudice on my part, I’ve been around a while too…

So, all power to Stereo MCs, Electric Six and Ash.  I loved them all.  And I got a strange kind of pride and sense of connection that they were playing in my home village and were so well received – it felt kinda personal.  It was perhaps especially heart-warming too that the festival could go ahead again and had quickly sold out, having been postponed for the last couple of years.  Plus there was no mention of that other thing that's apparently going on this weekend... what a delightful, hedonistic bubble.

All three bands completely delivered – Stereo MCs just made you want to dance and smile and celebrate, the sun warming your face, high on energy and life, timeless.   Electric Six were slightly, wonderfully mad, as you might expect –  especially eccentric frontman Dick Valentine with his introductions (“Song No. 1” , “Song No. 2”, etc.)   And Ash – well, I’ve loved Ash for a long time but had never seen them play – and here they were celebrating 30 years since their first rehearsal in June 1992 when they were 15 years old, and now on stage with a little entourage of young offspring at the side  – that alone is enough to make you smile isn’t it?  They were superb, tight as fuck, with a well-chosen setlist highlighting both characteristic pop melodies and those harder choppy guitars.   I have long wanted to hear Girl From Mars under the stars…   Ohh, at last.

So yeah, I had forgotten how good it could feel; what a difference it makes to your well-being to be entertained by proper talent and immersed in vibrant, live music with your fellow humans, not to take it for granted either.  I’m a little loved-up, to say the least.

This is the age of science and technology

Ask me about the reproductive cycle of the earthworm and I’m your woman; engage me in conversation about obscure 1960s British psychedelia and my eyes will light up.  But talk to me about technology and I want to run to the hills and hide in a treehouse where the only signals I can receive are from the birds and the butterflies… that’s ok, I speak their language.     The other stuff, the bytes and the apps and the nano SIMS, just aren’t my bag.

And it’s hard to be like this, don’t you think? It’s an easy, lazy excuse to say it’s just an age thing, as I don’t believe it is.  My dad, for instance, has always been very technologically minded; he keeps up-to-date and understands it all, no problem - he’s 93.  But I never have been, I’m just not wired that way.  My brain seems to effortlessly absorb facts about the mating rituals of snails and tells my hand how to draw (on paper) every day, but goes into panic mode when faced with questions about synching data and sharing app contents via NFC or whatever it is.   Is it so wrong to feel like that, is it so strange?  I feel quite out of step thanks to the way my mind works much of the time.  I can look out of a window for hours and not tire of it for one second, but with only a phone in front of me to scroll through I would be bored in no time.  I honestly don’t know how people manage it. 

As a result, I’m an avoider, and hence instead of doing things incrementally I’m now having to make (what feels like) a massive leap from a 9 year old phone which started playing up last week to something far more sophisticated than I deserve.   I got butterflies thinking about it, I could feel the stress levels rise, a sense of resistance – it’s ridiculous, I know.  There’s only one thing for it  - I must find a way to make it exciting…

To paraphrase Maya Angelou, "... if you can't change it, change your attitude".   I’m getting there.  It's shiny!  It’s a gorgeous, sumptuous shade of red! I mean, yes, it is aesthetically pleasing, I must admit.   And… it performs magic!  Ooh, plus I’ve bought a snappy leather case for it too.  Whoo hoo!  All I have to do (when my network upgrade finally gets activated…therein lies another tale)  is to switch it on.   And just hope that somehow, in some small way, it will switch me on too.

Here's 'Reality Poem', with its line that I borrowed for the title of this post, by Linton Kwesi Johnson, from the superb 'Forces of Victory' album which, quite shockingly, is now 43 years old.

Jackdaw days

He was free to come and go, I didn't want him to feel trapped or unable to wander wherever his natural instincts took him.   So sometimes he slipped through the gate and took a walk down the path behind the cottages to who knows where, and I wondered if I'd ever see him again, but then I'd look out later and, ah - there he was.  He never went for long.

Strikingly pale eyes.  Satin blue black back, smoky grey head.  An adult jackdaw in the garden - nothing that unusual perhaps but, unfortunately, in spite of no signs of injured wings or legs, this one was unable to fly and he'd been quietly taking refuge here for two weeks.

I know I shouldn't let myself become so emotionally invested but I seem to be wired that way... worrying about cats and sparrowhawks and foxes getting to him, worrying that he'd starve, so I did my best to provide food and water and not to spook him when I was outside.  There were places for him to hide and shelter, and he seemed to be doing ok given his fundamental weakness.  He was too shy, and too fast on those two legs, to attempt catching for 'rehab' purposes - besides, I didn't want either of us to go through the trauma of trying.  So my wish was that eventually he'd find the energy to stretch those shiny wings and take off to the treetops and chimney pots, and to be as free as a.... well, of course.   Just as a jackdaw should be.  In the meantime I knew he was vulnerable and prepared myself for a less happy outcome - but at least I'd know I tried my best.

All these thoughts of jackdaws had me searching for an appropriate song...  and I was pleasantly surprised to find one.  It also happens to be from an artist who has been much lauded over at Brian's place and his name is Martin Newell.

Our lovely blogging pal Brian over in Seattle is so much more familiar with Martin Newell's output than I'll ever be, so I really recommend reading up about him and having a listen to some tracks there. But I first came across the man as the vocalist with the band Gypp, a fairly local outfit who used to play various haunts in East Anglia in around '78/'79 including the one I frequented as a young teenager.  I just have a memory of a skinny, very English and rather eccentric wild-haired guy in a hat and I think probably very little has changed in the interim and, although I don't remember much about how Gypp sounded at the time, listening to some of Martin's much later songs I can hear '60s influences, shades of Robyn Hitchcock and The Dukes Of Stratosphear.   I was also interested to read about him and his later band The Cleaners From Venus (what a name) in the wonderful and highly recommended book 'Lost In Music' by Giles Smith (it's about time I read that again I think, and if you haven't, then why not?!)  Blogger won't let me insert a youtube version of the Cleaners From Venus song I have in mind here - 'Jackdaw Days' - but I found it on the Bandcamp page so here's a link:

The Cleaners From Venus: Jackdaw Days

Sadly the jackdaw died this morning, but it was peacefully in the undergrowth, thankfully not savaged by a cat or sparrowhawk or fox.  His last two weeks in the garden were hopefully pretty chilled with food, water, shelter, lots of bird company and this peculiar woman looking out for him.   Inspecting him more closely as I went to put him in the ground today, I started to wonder if he simply died of old age.