Mother

I was a huge Pink Floyd fan as a teenager. My introduction to rock music. Weirdly, via a teacher. A young, hippy sort of English teacher who played us Pink Floyd in lessons. Stuff from Meddle.

I'm still not sure how this worked. But Pink Floyd was somehow fixed in my head. And when we went to stay with Aunt Nell in Brum, we were in a record shop. And, having heard of Pink Floyd, we bought one of their albums. Me and my brother I mean by we. And Piper at the Gates of Dawn was the album.

It was the start of my love of music. Syd Barrett my hero.

Astronomy Domine. Great chord sequence and in three four time. Learning to play it, taught me just how wonderful it was. A Syd song. But not the Floyd song that's stuck weirdly in my head.

Brass. I love the sound of brass instruments. I played around with brass sounds in my own crappy tracks. Piss me off and I'll make you listen to them. But there was always one example of brass in rock. One I loved. But hadn't heard for a decade or three.

Atom Heart Mother.

 
Tears flow so easily in my dotage.

1970s playlist

I jokingly said that I should create a playlist to accompany all my posts about the 1970s. Then - I think Boak & Bailey - suggested that I should do it for real.So that's  what I've done. Thrown together a random jumble of stuff I might have listened to back then.

Enjoy. Or not. It may help conjure up the atmosphere of the time a little.

Emotion

I've become much more emotional as I've aged. At least overtly so.

Though devastated, I can't recall crying at my father's death. While at my mother's funeral. I could barely sing. My throat choked and my eyes streamed.

It's not that I loved my father any less than my mother. I'd changed.

Looking back, my younger self seems cold. Suppressing my feelings? I don't know.  

Tears didn't come to younger me. Having children changed that.

I'm sure that having children tipped me emotionally. I don't know why, or how. But it did.

I never used to cry. Now I do all the time. Not from sadness. But from joy. From empathy. Music, beauty. All can invoke tears.

Teenage me would have been ashamed, embarrassed. Wanted to hide such a raw expression of emotion.

Adult me couldn't give a shit about hiding my feelings. Other than from my kids. Who wants to see their father cry?

Music sets me off most. A melody so wonderful that my eyes leak uncontrollably. Like Face à la mer.

Emotion? I think it's a good thing.

Sitting on a park bench

today, supping a can of super-strength Lager, I wrote a little song. Inspired by our difficult times.

It's about loss, disenfranchisement, despair, the illusion of time, man's fragile existence and the ultimate futility of all human endeavour. Not to mention lurking mortality.

I'd like to share in with you, in the hope that it might help lighten the darkness that surrounds us. 

It's called: "I'm in Love with Rock and Roll."

 

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it ain't in love with me.

No more.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it ain't in love with me.

No more.

I'm too old and I'm to fat,
I've no idea where things are at,
The bands I love are all old hat,
I've turned into a right old twat.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it ain't in love with me.

No more.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it won't return my calls.

No more.

I can twitch, but I can't jive,
None of my heroes are alive,
I like to be at home by five,
. . .   PM.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it ain't in love with me.

No more.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it told me to fuck off.

Quite cold.

Being young was so much fun,
I used to think like everyone,
That growing old would never come,
Turns out I was fucking wrong.

I'm in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it don't care for me.

No more.

You're in love with rock and roll,
But rock and roll, it never loved you back.

Not once.

You never had a fucking clue,
Pose around is all you'd do,
We were all so bored with you,
Shame you didn't know that too.

No, no not nostalgia - a competition

Been doing lots of odd stuff of late. Transcribing Lager analyses. Listening to 90's Trip Hop*. Not from nostalgia. It's numbers I don't know.

Got some Depth Charge on now. Great dance DJ. As is Howie B, yesterday's entertainment. Know what I liked about them most? They didn't play any of their own records.

Apologies if this is a bit rambly. The Westvleterens are looking thin at Ton Overmars and I couldn't resist bringing one home with me for safe keeping. Surrounded by a security circle of St. Bernardus. Don't want Dolores to spot it. She knows the price. And leaving the Abts untouched would be suspicious

On a totally different note, Draught! Is coming along nicely. Got most of the words done. Lexie has created a cracking cover. . . . .Which I've buggered up with with rubbish typography.

So here's a competition. Replace my rubbish-looking words with something more stylish on this blank:

Same text as on my crappy version but looking, er, nice. Or cool. Anything other than cheap and crap, which is where I am now.

The winner - if there is one - gets an exclusive** deluxe hardback edition of the book for free.






*I'm reminded of one of my favourite books: "Obyčejný život" ("Ordinary Life") by Karel Čapek. Not that it will mean anything to anyone. Still one of the top books of the 20th century.

** I may decide, if I think I'll earn a few bob,to make this edition generally available.

Modern life is too easy

Do you know much time (and trouble) it took me to get my hands on Green Fuz?

Rubber bullets

I'm prone to musical suggestion. Most of it I can decipher. But not all.

When I lived in scenic Thornton Heath and commuted into central London very day, there was a song that leapt into my head every time I hit the terminus. A Kinks number. See if you can guess what it was. I'll come back to it later.

Some are just weird.

Coming back into town from the Arctic Ale tasting, I hummed Abba. There's a particular chord change - it could be one that's only in my imagination - in their Eurovision hit that bounces around the closed court of my head like a squash ball. If only my internal soundtrack were classier. Sorry. I do Abba an injustice. If only it were more hip.

Coming to my credibility rescue are the John Coltrane tunes that sometimes bubble in my subconscious. No idea why. I don't even like jazz.

Potatoland is another fave. "Take my hand, and go to potatoland." Why does that phrase pop its head up from its burrow while I stare at my work screen? I probably don't want to know. Rubber Bullets - a song I don't even like - is another worktime companion.

The bus is worse. I've been re-arranging in my head the songs of our crap band. I'd tell you the name of the band. But it's just too embarassing. Even worse than the names of the songs. My new bass line for Hot Thing is way better than the original. And my adjustments to the chord structure have added a new dynamism. That's what I think. And you'll never be able to call me a liar, because it will never leave my head. That's the fun of virtual arranging. No-one can call it crap, as I'm the only one ever to hear it.

 A song about a long-dead monarch, famed for being as hip as wristbands. Bit out for the radical sixties.

But that's what I sang inside my head every morning for two years.

Sickness

It's great being ill. I get to be at home alone. All those things I can't do while the rest of the family is around are suddenly possible.

Number one is listening to music.

"Dad, turn off that crap." "Noooo dad, I don't want to hear this horrible shit." That was when the kids were being reasonable. Mostly they were far less polite.

Music used to rule my life. Like many youngsters, it was my musical taste that defined me and autoselected my friends. The NME was my bible, punk my epiphany, playing my sacrament. How could I have abandoned my religion without a fight?

Being bullied by your kids. There's not much more humbling than that. But it's true. My kids have bullied music out of my life. Surely it should be the other way around.

They're at school today, while an onion-breathed cold ravages my sinuses and stuffs my head. Time for Teenage Fanclub, Fehlfarben, The Faces and The Wedding Present.

Living in the past. It's what I'm all about.


Bonus question: where's the photo from?