Richard Foreman's Blog, page 5
October 16, 2017
Me and Paul Simon Down in the MRI Scanner
A week ago last Sunday saw me, thanks to our 24/7 National Health Service, spending an hour inside an MRI scanner at a local hospital. Fans of Industrial Noise music, be advised. Never mind your Merzbow, your Matmos or your Pan Sonic, MRI scans are the business. For a start, you are lying in a white plastic tube, with a few dirty grey smears just above your face. All the alienation you could want. For each of the several short scans, you get a different noise. The most prevalent one resembles a road drill, others involve various hideous bleeps and thumps and sort of 1940s/50s alarm siren noises. Noiseniks, welcome to heaven.
You would of course turn down the offer of protective headphones from a kindly nurse. You’d want every last decibel, full on. You’d probably want to sample it and loop it onto a CDR or whatever, but given the powerful magnetic fields being generated, that might not work out too well.
But I’m a wimp, I’m afraid. I took the earphones. I was asked what sort of music I’d like to be played through them. Pop, Rock or Classical? 60s, 70s or 80s? Dreading the thought of being trapped in the machine for an hour with Englebert, Mungo Jerry or Yazz, I thought as fast as I could and asked: “Have you got anything sort of quiet and folky?” At that point in the proceedings, obviously, little did I know how useless an option that would be.
“We have some Simon and Garfunkel,” came the reply. Not wishing to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily by asking for a run-down of the entire catalogue of available music, I agreed to Paul and Artie. I mean, they were hardly likely to offer me any John Renbourn, were they? And besides, I once loved the music of Simon and Garfunkel quite deeply. Their ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme’ album was amongst the first twenty LPs I ever owned. Okay, some of it sounds a bit twee to my ears now, but ‘The Dangling Conversation’ still sends a strange shiver down my spine. ‘You read your Emily Dickinson / and I my Robert Frost / and we mark our place with bookmarkers / and measure what we’ve lost.’ Haunting. And although the slang has long since been dragged through the mud, ‘The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’ still cheers my heart.
But with the next album, ‘Bookends’, Paul Simon really upped his game. I can’t remember the exact chronology but this was the time of Sergeant Pepper and those kind of mini-epic singles like the Stones’ ‘We Love You’, the Yardbirds ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ or Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’. Simon came up with a sequence of singles that were more than a match in terms of both intricate construction and lyrical sophistication: ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’, ‘At the Zoo’, ‘Fakin’ It’ and ‘Mrs Robinson’. And they were all on one side of ‘Bookends’ whilst the other side featured a suite of superb new songs I can still listen to with absolute enjoyment to this day.
I recently saw a U-Tube clip of David Bowie respectfully performing one of those songs, ‘America’. He just sat cross legged on the stage playing a small keyboard, with no other accompaniment. I’ve not been much of a Bowie fan since ‘Hunky Dory’ but I had to admit, in that simple rendition of its wistful, romantic, stirring lyric, he nailed it big time. Once again: haunting.
So I’m being rolled into the scanner on the stretcher thing, these huge earphones covering my ears, hands on my chest, my belly covered with some sort of plastic rig that will facilitate the scanning process, along with another plate thing under my bum, and I’m thinking ‘What’ll it be? Which album?’. I figured the most likely thing would be a best-of compilation.
And there I am, staring up at the grey smears in my tubular tomb-like enclosure and the music starts. What is it? It’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled’ bloody ‘Waters’, that’s what it is.
‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ was probably my first experience of discovering that even my favourites could well turn out to have feet of clay. It was presaged by ‘The Boxer’ – a worthy finale to that succession of psychedelia influenced singles mentioned above, but this turned out to be Simon’s last gasp for a long, long time. Well, for me at least. The rest of the album was a huge disappointment, pleasantly bland at best, occasionally descending into downright irritating. There’s probably a story about it somewhere, but I suspect a succumbing on Simon’s part to be more ‘commercial’.
At which he was entirely successful, because if I remember rightly ‘Bridge’ was S&G’s highest selling album. Which, I guess, is why it was the one I then had to endure. Fortunately, once the noise started, the earphones proved to have little effect, except perhaps to protect me from the eardrum battering intensity of the MRI machinery. I’d get to hear a bar or two of ‘Cecilia’ or ‘El Condor Pasa’ from time to time, before the nurse’s voice cut in to tell me the next scan would last for four minutes and the rat-attat-tat, clanging, honging and tweeting would start up again. All I could hear of S&G in these interludes was the bass-lines, a bit of percussion and occasionally the vaguest hints of the melody. I retained some hopes I might hear at least some of ‘The Boxer’ but that too was utterly drowned.
Credit is of course due to the NHS. I am blessed to have such a service to check whether I may or may not be suffering from a medical condition. I loathe the creeping privatisation that is gradually undermining its structure and effectiveness. I am profoundly grateful to all the hard working men and women who keep it operating, especially those who more or less saved my life a few years ago. I am grateful too that they think to provide earphones and music for people going into MRI scanners. I’m sure 99.5% of us appreciate it.
As for the other 0.05%, this has to be your big chance. Go for it, noiseniks!
You would of course turn down the offer of protective headphones from a kindly nurse. You’d want every last decibel, full on. You’d probably want to sample it and loop it onto a CDR or whatever, but given the powerful magnetic fields being generated, that might not work out too well.
But I’m a wimp, I’m afraid. I took the earphones. I was asked what sort of music I’d like to be played through them. Pop, Rock or Classical? 60s, 70s or 80s? Dreading the thought of being trapped in the machine for an hour with Englebert, Mungo Jerry or Yazz, I thought as fast as I could and asked: “Have you got anything sort of quiet and folky?” At that point in the proceedings, obviously, little did I know how useless an option that would be.
“We have some Simon and Garfunkel,” came the reply. Not wishing to prolong the proceedings unnecessarily by asking for a run-down of the entire catalogue of available music, I agreed to Paul and Artie. I mean, they were hardly likely to offer me any John Renbourn, were they? And besides, I once loved the music of Simon and Garfunkel quite deeply. Their ‘Parsley, Sage, Rosemary and Thyme’ album was amongst the first twenty LPs I ever owned. Okay, some of it sounds a bit twee to my ears now, but ‘The Dangling Conversation’ still sends a strange shiver down my spine. ‘You read your Emily Dickinson / and I my Robert Frost / and we mark our place with bookmarkers / and measure what we’ve lost.’ Haunting. And although the slang has long since been dragged through the mud, ‘The 59th Street Bridge Song (Feelin’ Groovy)’ still cheers my heart.
But with the next album, ‘Bookends’, Paul Simon really upped his game. I can’t remember the exact chronology but this was the time of Sergeant Pepper and those kind of mini-epic singles like the Stones’ ‘We Love You’, the Yardbirds ‘Happenings Ten Years Time Ago’ or Pink Floyd’s ‘See Emily Play’. Simon came up with a sequence of singles that were more than a match in terms of both intricate construction and lyrical sophistication: ‘Hazy Shade of Winter’, ‘At the Zoo’, ‘Fakin’ It’ and ‘Mrs Robinson’. And they were all on one side of ‘Bookends’ whilst the other side featured a suite of superb new songs I can still listen to with absolute enjoyment to this day.
I recently saw a U-Tube clip of David Bowie respectfully performing one of those songs, ‘America’. He just sat cross legged on the stage playing a small keyboard, with no other accompaniment. I’ve not been much of a Bowie fan since ‘Hunky Dory’ but I had to admit, in that simple rendition of its wistful, romantic, stirring lyric, he nailed it big time. Once again: haunting.
So I’m being rolled into the scanner on the stretcher thing, these huge earphones covering my ears, hands on my chest, my belly covered with some sort of plastic rig that will facilitate the scanning process, along with another plate thing under my bum, and I’m thinking ‘What’ll it be? Which album?’. I figured the most likely thing would be a best-of compilation.
And there I am, staring up at the grey smears in my tubular tomb-like enclosure and the music starts. What is it? It’s ‘Bridge Over Troubled’ bloody ‘Waters’, that’s what it is.
‘Bridge Over Troubled Waters’ was probably my first experience of discovering that even my favourites could well turn out to have feet of clay. It was presaged by ‘The Boxer’ – a worthy finale to that succession of psychedelia influenced singles mentioned above, but this turned out to be Simon’s last gasp for a long, long time. Well, for me at least. The rest of the album was a huge disappointment, pleasantly bland at best, occasionally descending into downright irritating. There’s probably a story about it somewhere, but I suspect a succumbing on Simon’s part to be more ‘commercial’.
At which he was entirely successful, because if I remember rightly ‘Bridge’ was S&G’s highest selling album. Which, I guess, is why it was the one I then had to endure. Fortunately, once the noise started, the earphones proved to have little effect, except perhaps to protect me from the eardrum battering intensity of the MRI machinery. I’d get to hear a bar or two of ‘Cecilia’ or ‘El Condor Pasa’ from time to time, before the nurse’s voice cut in to tell me the next scan would last for four minutes and the rat-attat-tat, clanging, honging and tweeting would start up again. All I could hear of S&G in these interludes was the bass-lines, a bit of percussion and occasionally the vaguest hints of the melody. I retained some hopes I might hear at least some of ‘The Boxer’ but that too was utterly drowned.
Credit is of course due to the NHS. I am blessed to have such a service to check whether I may or may not be suffering from a medical condition. I loathe the creeping privatisation that is gradually undermining its structure and effectiveness. I am profoundly grateful to all the hard working men and women who keep it operating, especially those who more or less saved my life a few years ago. I am grateful too that they think to provide earphones and music for people going into MRI scanners. I’m sure 99.5% of us appreciate it.
As for the other 0.05%, this has to be your big chance. Go for it, noiseniks!
October 2, 2017
Girl From the North Country converts a doubtful theatre goer
Though finding most forms of artistic endeavour attractive and often immersive, I’ve never been strongly attracted to theatrical works. I can acknowledge that many of them are great and have been an audience member for a few of them, but it’s not an art-form I have ‘followed’ or even paid a great deal of attention to. Consequently I’ve not had any great desire to write for the theatre.
And certainly not to act. I enjoy performing, as anyone who has heard me reading from ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ will probably confirm, but anything that would depend on learning ‘lines’ is pretty much out of the question as I have a distinctly malfunctioning memory.
It may be somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear that I spent some years in the early 1980s as a member of a touring theatre group. There is an explanation. The group, Word and Action (Dorset), was to a large extent run on a collective basis and had branched out into various ‘community arts’ activities including publishing. I joined because they were looking for someone to co-ordinate a poetry magazine. A different Dorset based poet was invited to edit each issue – I was to be the ‘go-between’. Fine. I was cut out for that. But then they said: ‘this is a collective. You participate in everything we do.’ Gulp.
But what they did, I certainly admired. It was, on absolute principal, 'theatre in the round' – no special lighting, no special effects or soundtrack, virtually no scenery or costume. It was a form of theatre that sought to remove any sense of hierarchy that exists between performer and audience, and to enable audience members to use their own imaginations to a much greater degree. (I’ll add a couple of links at the end for anyone interested). Much of W&A(D)’s work was improvised, audiences being invited to create - and join in performing - the story. To my surprise, with some in-group training, I discovered I had whatever it takes to be a part of this process and ended up working not only in Dorset but joining touring groups in the UK and Scandinavia. When it came to the scripted work I remained crap and fortunately was not called upon to do much of it.
I left the group after two or three years, following my own star once more. Its view of theatre had made a lasting impression on me and I was deeply suspicious of any kind of staged theatrical performance. This combined with my earlier lack of interest, and though in time I mellowed, theatre remained low on my list of priorities. Consequently, when I left a subsequent employment in 2012 and my generous work colleagues presented me with a substantial pile of theatre tokens as a parting gift, I was bemused. I made polite noises of gratitude and privately thought: ‘What am I going to do with these?’
Five years later and I finally got to use some of them. Passing through London on the train I saw a poster advertising ‘Girl From the North Country’ and was intrigued. Written and directed by Conor McPherson, it said, music and lyrics by Bob Dylan. McPherson was a ‘complete unknown’ as far as I was concerned. Dylan certainly wasn’t. Checked it out online back home and the intrigue continued. Discovered I could use my tokens at the Old Vic where it was on. Asked my dear partner if she was up for it and she was. Thus, last Wednesday, we found ourselves sat in the middle of Row R, in stall seats we would normally have balked at paying for, as the performance commenced.
As I hope I’ve explained, I had a lot of suspicion to overcome – and I haven’t even mentioned yet that of all forms of theatre ‘musicals’ were at the bottom of my list. I’m not among the most fanatical of Bob Dylan appreciators, but can think of few other songwriters whose best work has remained so resonant and powerful for most of my life. The play uses songs from 1963 to 2012, and plenty of my favourites are amongst them. What were they going to do? Give them the ‘showbiz’ treatment? The thought appalled me.
Some reassurance came with the instrumentation evident on the stage – a drumkit to stage right, an upright piano to stage left. Not much else to be seen until musicians appeared toting acoustic guitars, upright bass and fiddle. The choice was, apparently, to use only instruments contemporaneous with the play's 1930s period setting. Further reassurance came with the first song: ‘Sign on the Window’ from ‘New Morning’. Beautifully sung, the freshness and suggestiveness of the lyrics (‘Sign on the window says "lonely, " / Sign on the door said "no company allowed, "…’) seemed re-illuminated for me.
It aptly, if not literally, set the atmosphere for the play that was to follow – an interweaving of stories set in the single location of a Duluth, Minnesota guesthouse during the Depression era. The various characters are beset by tragedy, some of their own making, some forced by desperate circumstance – yet the script is loaded with humour and sharp repartee. It doesn’t take long before you feel for them, share their hopes and aspirations and, as the chips go down, their despair.
As for the musical interludes – which is how they came, often as medleys of two or more songs – the pattern of aptness, rather than literal correlation became set and worked, for me, extremely well. This approach has been described by the play’s creators as ‘a conversation between the songs and the story’ and, thinking about it, is probably the only way you could locate some of Dylan’s most powerful songs in such a context. It helped that the performers, almost every last one of them, were such strong and impassioned singers and that the musical arrangements were mostly spot-on appropriate.
A few liberties were of necessity taken. Lyrics to the songs were edited (how long would it have taken just to listen to those twenty songs in their entirety?) and were arranged and interpreted according to the emotional context of the scenes in which they featured. Very occasionally, I did get a ‘showbiz’ vibe – the performance of ‘I Want You’ kind of palled for me, losing too much of the laconic splendour of its verses in favour of an over simplified emphasis on its chorus. But this was a minor slip. A lot of attention had been paid to the vitality of Dylan’s ‘born again’ era gospel-type arrangements and even when they did not originate in this period, a lot of the songs benefited from the additional harmonies etc. The dancing was pretty darn good too.
So, as you’ve doubtless guessed by now, I was won over in the course of this performance. It was particularly enhanced by what seemed to me a stand-out job of work by the diminutive but powerful Shirley Henderson, as Elizabeth, wife of the guesthouse proprietor, Nick. Described as a victim of dementia her character provided a kind of ‘holy fool’ element – apparently deranged yet speaking, at times, the most penetrating truths. This actress clearly relished the part and sometimes literally threw herself into it, managing to maintain her sense of her character even in the group dance routines. Her rendition of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ touched on the sublime. I’ve singled her out but similar relish could be felt in a good many more of the character parts, and – towards the end – the script touched on deeper and more fundamental human issues. I will be keeping an eye open for more of Conor McPherson’s work in future.
Okay, now I have to admit, I was in tears at the end. There was tragedy, there was redemption for some, and there was a final rendition of ‘Forever Young’ – one of Dylan’s sweetest and most hopeful songs. As much as the story and the performances, it was the sense of celebration of Dylan’s work that affected me so strongly, I think. So final words to him:
Can you tell me where we're headin'?Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?Seems like I been down this way beforeIs there any truth in that, señor?
Word and Action links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_an...
http://www.rggregory.com/
http://roundtheatre.blogspot.co.uk/
And certainly not to act. I enjoy performing, as anyone who has heard me reading from ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ will probably confirm, but anything that would depend on learning ‘lines’ is pretty much out of the question as I have a distinctly malfunctioning memory.
It may be somewhat surprising, therefore, to hear that I spent some years in the early 1980s as a member of a touring theatre group. There is an explanation. The group, Word and Action (Dorset), was to a large extent run on a collective basis and had branched out into various ‘community arts’ activities including publishing. I joined because they were looking for someone to co-ordinate a poetry magazine. A different Dorset based poet was invited to edit each issue – I was to be the ‘go-between’. Fine. I was cut out for that. But then they said: ‘this is a collective. You participate in everything we do.’ Gulp.
But what they did, I certainly admired. It was, on absolute principal, 'theatre in the round' – no special lighting, no special effects or soundtrack, virtually no scenery or costume. It was a form of theatre that sought to remove any sense of hierarchy that exists between performer and audience, and to enable audience members to use their own imaginations to a much greater degree. (I’ll add a couple of links at the end for anyone interested). Much of W&A(D)’s work was improvised, audiences being invited to create - and join in performing - the story. To my surprise, with some in-group training, I discovered I had whatever it takes to be a part of this process and ended up working not only in Dorset but joining touring groups in the UK and Scandinavia. When it came to the scripted work I remained crap and fortunately was not called upon to do much of it.
I left the group after two or three years, following my own star once more. Its view of theatre had made a lasting impression on me and I was deeply suspicious of any kind of staged theatrical performance. This combined with my earlier lack of interest, and though in time I mellowed, theatre remained low on my list of priorities. Consequently, when I left a subsequent employment in 2012 and my generous work colleagues presented me with a substantial pile of theatre tokens as a parting gift, I was bemused. I made polite noises of gratitude and privately thought: ‘What am I going to do with these?’
Five years later and I finally got to use some of them. Passing through London on the train I saw a poster advertising ‘Girl From the North Country’ and was intrigued. Written and directed by Conor McPherson, it said, music and lyrics by Bob Dylan. McPherson was a ‘complete unknown’ as far as I was concerned. Dylan certainly wasn’t. Checked it out online back home and the intrigue continued. Discovered I could use my tokens at the Old Vic where it was on. Asked my dear partner if she was up for it and she was. Thus, last Wednesday, we found ourselves sat in the middle of Row R, in stall seats we would normally have balked at paying for, as the performance commenced.
As I hope I’ve explained, I had a lot of suspicion to overcome – and I haven’t even mentioned yet that of all forms of theatre ‘musicals’ were at the bottom of my list. I’m not among the most fanatical of Bob Dylan appreciators, but can think of few other songwriters whose best work has remained so resonant and powerful for most of my life. The play uses songs from 1963 to 2012, and plenty of my favourites are amongst them. What were they going to do? Give them the ‘showbiz’ treatment? The thought appalled me.
Some reassurance came with the instrumentation evident on the stage – a drumkit to stage right, an upright piano to stage left. Not much else to be seen until musicians appeared toting acoustic guitars, upright bass and fiddle. The choice was, apparently, to use only instruments contemporaneous with the play's 1930s period setting. Further reassurance came with the first song: ‘Sign on the Window’ from ‘New Morning’. Beautifully sung, the freshness and suggestiveness of the lyrics (‘Sign on the window says "lonely, " / Sign on the door said "no company allowed, "…’) seemed re-illuminated for me.
It aptly, if not literally, set the atmosphere for the play that was to follow – an interweaving of stories set in the single location of a Duluth, Minnesota guesthouse during the Depression era. The various characters are beset by tragedy, some of their own making, some forced by desperate circumstance – yet the script is loaded with humour and sharp repartee. It doesn’t take long before you feel for them, share their hopes and aspirations and, as the chips go down, their despair.
As for the musical interludes – which is how they came, often as medleys of two or more songs – the pattern of aptness, rather than literal correlation became set and worked, for me, extremely well. This approach has been described by the play’s creators as ‘a conversation between the songs and the story’ and, thinking about it, is probably the only way you could locate some of Dylan’s most powerful songs in such a context. It helped that the performers, almost every last one of them, were such strong and impassioned singers and that the musical arrangements were mostly spot-on appropriate.
A few liberties were of necessity taken. Lyrics to the songs were edited (how long would it have taken just to listen to those twenty songs in their entirety?) and were arranged and interpreted according to the emotional context of the scenes in which they featured. Very occasionally, I did get a ‘showbiz’ vibe – the performance of ‘I Want You’ kind of palled for me, losing too much of the laconic splendour of its verses in favour of an over simplified emphasis on its chorus. But this was a minor slip. A lot of attention had been paid to the vitality of Dylan’s ‘born again’ era gospel-type arrangements and even when they did not originate in this period, a lot of the songs benefited from the additional harmonies etc. The dancing was pretty darn good too.
So, as you’ve doubtless guessed by now, I was won over in the course of this performance. It was particularly enhanced by what seemed to me a stand-out job of work by the diminutive but powerful Shirley Henderson, as Elizabeth, wife of the guesthouse proprietor, Nick. Described as a victim of dementia her character provided a kind of ‘holy fool’ element – apparently deranged yet speaking, at times, the most penetrating truths. This actress clearly relished the part and sometimes literally threw herself into it, managing to maintain her sense of her character even in the group dance routines. Her rendition of ‘Like a Rolling Stone’ touched on the sublime. I’ve singled her out but similar relish could be felt in a good many more of the character parts, and – towards the end – the script touched on deeper and more fundamental human issues. I will be keeping an eye open for more of Conor McPherson’s work in future.
Okay, now I have to admit, I was in tears at the end. There was tragedy, there was redemption for some, and there was a final rendition of ‘Forever Young’ – one of Dylan’s sweetest and most hopeful songs. As much as the story and the performances, it was the sense of celebration of Dylan’s work that affected me so strongly, I think. So final words to him:
Can you tell me where we're headin'?Lincoln County Road or Armageddon?Seems like I been down this way beforeIs there any truth in that, señor?
Word and Action links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Word_an...
http://www.rggregory.com/
http://roundtheatre.blogspot.co.uk/
September 18, 2017
Holger Czukay - Sound Surfer, 1938-2017
Found dead, earlier this month, in the Innerspace Studios apartment where he’d lived for many years, Holger Czukay was a unique musician. I didn’t always ‘get’ his work. Experiments, by their nature, are not always going to be successful. Chances taken are not always going to pay off. But my respect is reserved for those who take such risks, especially when they’ve the skill and vision to achieve at least the occasional sublime result.
The 1979 album ‘Movies’ is, for me, the most wholly successful of his works. It was re-released in 2016 under the title ‘Movie’, remixed presumably to its creator’s satisfaction and with an additional instrumental version of its opening track. I’m still living with the original recording, listened to once more on the day I read of his death, and still as fresh and vital a set as when I first heard it. Intricately laced into its exhilarating rhythms, filigree guitar patterns and occasional, archly quirky vocals are a seemingly endless sequence of what we eventually learned to call ‘samples’. Music from the middle east and elsewhere recorded with the scratchy sonic patina of imperfect reception on a.m. radio, plus snatches of American film dialogue and animated cartoon sound effects are the principal elements of this dazzling weave. This audio collage is all the more amazing on account of its painstaking construction, involving the splicing of magnetic tape by hand, from what I can gather.
Whilst it was not an album by Czukay’s former band, Can, his bandmates all contributed, drummer Jaki Liebezeit most consistently. Also recently deceased, Liebezeit continued to work frequently with Czukay during the 80s and 90s. Interviews indicate a deep mutual respect. On ‘Movies’ Liebezeit plays in a more nuanced and subtle manner than in the heyday of Can, but his utterly precise yet deeply felt rhythms are an essential part of the drive that carries the listener through its two lengthiest pieces: ‘Oh Lord Give Us More Money’ and ‘Hollywood Symphony’. It’s been a few days since the evening I played it, but it’s a testament to its quality that the music has soundwormed its way into my thoughts and sequences of it still replay frequently somewhere within my brain.
There are equal, if not quite such consistent delights to be found on the majority of Czukay’s other recorded works. The delightful ‘Ode to Perfume’ on follow-up album ‘On the Way to the Peak of Normal’, another lengthy and intricate piece; the haunted ambience of ‘Träum' mal wieder!’ and ‘Music in the Air’ on each of the albums that followed… These spring to mind as personal favourites. What anyone will pick out for his or herself will depend on taste, of course. What might be chosen can be picked from an astonishing diversity of sounds and moods, from merry melodies to jarring discords. One thing Czukay never was was predictable!
He got himself involved in some marvellous collaborations too. Lengthy ambient works constructed with David Sylvian over two albums and occasional work with Jah Wobble stand out for me. In later years, Czukay also worked closely with partner U-She – although at this point in his career the beauty came for me in smaller and rarer snatches. That doesn’t matter – he’d earned the right to explore wherever and whatever he wanted. The last of his albums to really draw me in was his ‘internet audio collaboration’ which was released as ‘Linear City’. Its slow developing, techno immersed patterns took a while to penetrate but proved eventually to hold a full wealth of musical sensations.
Since I first got into music there have been certain artists whose individuality as creators has stood out and shone for me in ways that somehow go beyond just being great musicians. I’m thinking of Don Van Vliet and his Magic Bands; of Lee Perry in his Black Ark Studio period; of Michael Hurley and his extraordinary songs… It’s stuff that touches me beyond taste, beyond intellect. On a direct line to whatever I think of as my ‘soul’, I guess. Czukay was one of them, without a doubt. Our world is more impoverished without him, but his achievements shine on.
September 4, 2017
Two Rooms So Far Apart
This year, apart from ‘Air B’n’B’s (all as yet pretty good), I’ve stayed with my partner in two accommodation establishments. Looking through my notebook, I discover I’ve written descriptions of the main rooms we’ve stayed in, in both. There could hardly be more of a contrast. Here, slightly edited, is what I wrote:
Trallwyn Cottage, Pembrokeshire, March 2017.
The living room: our cwtch. A section of white-painted stone wall protrudes into the room, to the left of a wood burning stove and small well-packed bookcase . Draped from its top surface ledge, held in place by an unused spinning wheel, a ‘witch’ doll and three hand made teapots, is a roughly sewn patchwork quilt. The exposed surface is made of flowery and patterned cottons – from old dresses, perhaps – in simple squares. From one of the beams on the lean-to sloped ceiling, a wicker basket hangs. Below this a small round pine table, with three matching chairs, and a rocking chair. Against the opposite wall an old sofa, scattered with random cushions, and an electric heater in the corner. Red velvet curtains hang on either side of a small window, which looks out on a garden view, ageing wooden bench seat prominent on the grass. On the sill, a collection of beautiful objects – boxes, hand-painted stones, a vase of fresh picked wild flowers. On a small chest of drawers, there’s a TV for those who want it, discretely covered with a drape of diamond patterned Indian-design material. Next to it, another vase filled at this time with the season’s daffodils. On the walls are various pictures, original paintings by the proprietor amongst them, and a mirrored candleholder. And hanging, nearby, a deep and richly sonorous set of wind chimes. A lushly patterned rug sits on the carpeted floor. Overlooked by a ‘sleeping platform’, reached by means of a steep wooden staircase that descends into the room, this is a profoundly restful place. It is suffused with a sense of calm and grace. At the foot of the Presellis and a few minutes walk from the Gors Fawr stone circle, it’s amongst the most beautiful holiday accommodation I’ve ever experienced.
‘StayCity ApartHotel’ room, York, August 2017.
One of 187 near identical rooms, it is quintessentially utilitarian. With the exception of a reasonably comfortable double bed and a garish yellow pouffe in one corner, everything you can see is in the shape of squares or rectangles – at least down to the level of smaller objects such as kettle, lamp shades etc. It’s set up for self catering, and on a wall that separates the bathroom from the living area, is a fairly well equipped array, including microwave, fridge, hob and even a dishwasher. The surfaces are in a white-grey veneer, patterned with a vaguely woodgrain effect. There are no carpets. It’s as if a double bed has been inserted into a kitchen. Each side of the overall building, which is shaped as a semi-circle, comprises of a series of huge identical windows, separated by thin strips of concrete. Each of these windows forms an entire room wall and cannot be opened (temperature control here being governed by a noisy air-conditioning device). Like every other window to be seen, it’s covered by a large net curtain. The view on our side of the building is of a flat, concrete semi-circle, beyond the straight edge of which is the breeze block architecture of York’s ‘Barbican’ theatre venue. There is not a single piece of greenery to be seen. Back inside, there’s a small square Formica topped table, with two dining chairs. Along with a couple of bedside cabinets, that’s it for furniture/décor, apart from three standardised pictures hung above the bed, and a large, wall mounted, black flat screen TV opposite. After a while here, I start to remember 60s/70s S.F. novels of dystopian, overcrowded futures, where human accommodation has been reduced to ‘cube cells’ or whatever. This room feels like an embodiment of such a vision. The only anomaly being that, down at the reception desk, there are still human beings, not robots.
To be fair, which I suppose I must be, the cumbersomely named ‘StayCity ApartHotel’ chain exists with the intention of providing relatively cheap, ‘no-frills’ accommodation in city centre locations, and is doubtless appreciated by those who make use of it. While, in deepest Pembrokeshire, Anna Kavanagh’s Trallwyn Holiday Cottages (go to http://www.simplystonecottages.com/ for more info) are a sheer labour of love. But having written both these pieces, I could not resist presenting the juxtaposition.
Trallwyn Cottage, Pembrokeshire, March 2017.
The living room: our cwtch. A section of white-painted stone wall protrudes into the room, to the left of a wood burning stove and small well-packed bookcase . Draped from its top surface ledge, held in place by an unused spinning wheel, a ‘witch’ doll and three hand made teapots, is a roughly sewn patchwork quilt. The exposed surface is made of flowery and patterned cottons – from old dresses, perhaps – in simple squares. From one of the beams on the lean-to sloped ceiling, a wicker basket hangs. Below this a small round pine table, with three matching chairs, and a rocking chair. Against the opposite wall an old sofa, scattered with random cushions, and an electric heater in the corner. Red velvet curtains hang on either side of a small window, which looks out on a garden view, ageing wooden bench seat prominent on the grass. On the sill, a collection of beautiful objects – boxes, hand-painted stones, a vase of fresh picked wild flowers. On a small chest of drawers, there’s a TV for those who want it, discretely covered with a drape of diamond patterned Indian-design material. Next to it, another vase filled at this time with the season’s daffodils. On the walls are various pictures, original paintings by the proprietor amongst them, and a mirrored candleholder. And hanging, nearby, a deep and richly sonorous set of wind chimes. A lushly patterned rug sits on the carpeted floor. Overlooked by a ‘sleeping platform’, reached by means of a steep wooden staircase that descends into the room, this is a profoundly restful place. It is suffused with a sense of calm and grace. At the foot of the Presellis and a few minutes walk from the Gors Fawr stone circle, it’s amongst the most beautiful holiday accommodation I’ve ever experienced.
‘StayCity ApartHotel’ room, York, August 2017.
One of 187 near identical rooms, it is quintessentially utilitarian. With the exception of a reasonably comfortable double bed and a garish yellow pouffe in one corner, everything you can see is in the shape of squares or rectangles – at least down to the level of smaller objects such as kettle, lamp shades etc. It’s set up for self catering, and on a wall that separates the bathroom from the living area, is a fairly well equipped array, including microwave, fridge, hob and even a dishwasher. The surfaces are in a white-grey veneer, patterned with a vaguely woodgrain effect. There are no carpets. It’s as if a double bed has been inserted into a kitchen. Each side of the overall building, which is shaped as a semi-circle, comprises of a series of huge identical windows, separated by thin strips of concrete. Each of these windows forms an entire room wall and cannot be opened (temperature control here being governed by a noisy air-conditioning device). Like every other window to be seen, it’s covered by a large net curtain. The view on our side of the building is of a flat, concrete semi-circle, beyond the straight edge of which is the breeze block architecture of York’s ‘Barbican’ theatre venue. There is not a single piece of greenery to be seen. Back inside, there’s a small square Formica topped table, with two dining chairs. Along with a couple of bedside cabinets, that’s it for furniture/décor, apart from three standardised pictures hung above the bed, and a large, wall mounted, black flat screen TV opposite. After a while here, I start to remember 60s/70s S.F. novels of dystopian, overcrowded futures, where human accommodation has been reduced to ‘cube cells’ or whatever. This room feels like an embodiment of such a vision. The only anomaly being that, down at the reception desk, there are still human beings, not robots.
To be fair, which I suppose I must be, the cumbersomely named ‘StayCity ApartHotel’ chain exists with the intention of providing relatively cheap, ‘no-frills’ accommodation in city centre locations, and is doubtless appreciated by those who make use of it. While, in deepest Pembrokeshire, Anna Kavanagh’s Trallwyn Holiday Cottages (go to http://www.simplystonecottages.com/ for more info) are a sheer labour of love. But having written both these pieces, I could not resist presenting the juxtaposition.
August 23, 2017
A Miscellany of Plums
They are in season. In our house (the one I’ve just moved to if you read the last blog) they have been appearing frequently in brown paper bags whose contents rapidly disappear. Quite fond of them myself, but the other half, she loves them. They are well nice cooked, as far as I remember. But chez nous they get eaten much too fast for any such preparation to be hoped for.
She knows her plums. She reckons Victoria Plums, the ones you most commonly find, are far from the best and recommends a list of other varieties – some of which she obtains and do indeed taste pretty good, if I get to have a sample before they are gone. Like so many fruit, supermarkets - with their general tendency towards enforcing standardisation and 52 week a year supply - tend to import them. My partner, however, is not alone in thinking that British is best.
All this set me wondering. Just how many varieties are there? An online search proved overwhelming. Some of the names alone are enough to make your mouth water. Coe’s Golden Drop, anyone? How about Belle de Louvain or Blue de Belgique (obviously British from skin to stone)? And oh, to try a Warwickshire Drooper or a Denniston’s Superb, a Golden Sphere or a Wallis’s Wonder.
Some of these names are redolent of history or legend, it seems: Monarch, Black Prince, The President, Guinevere, Avalon and Excaliber. Others the names of those who presumably bred them: Angelina Burdett, Edwards, Kirkes Blue, Reeves Seedling, Marjorie’s Seedling or the particularly evocative Sanctus Herbertus. Yet more imply richness and quality: Ruby, Opal, Denniston’s Superb, Early Prolific, Valour and Verity. Surely we can’t go wrong with any of these. A plum pilgimage across our land is called for. Just as soon as we… Oh. Hello reality.
It is, of course, a similar situation with apples. The story does not end with Coxes, Galas, Braeburns or Granny Smiths. Far, far from it. But I’ve already bandied one list of wonderful names. Go look for yourself. The danger is that whatever you find may just be in danger of being lost if we don’t seek out the richness of product that main suppliers deem un-economic. I’ve long been guilty of buying the crap stuff myself, simply out of convenience. Imports from New Zealand? What was I thinking? But my partner’s enthusiasms have re-kindled my interest. You can’t break the pattern every time you buy – if it’s the only shelf available and you’re hungry, you gotta eat. But try when you can. Keep variety (and locally produced variety at that) alive.
Now where can I find a nice Violetta, I wonder…
August 8, 2017
Cardboard Boxes
The blog today is being written in a house where nearly everything is packed in cardboard boxes awaiting a house move. I’m sitting in a room that was once my ‘office’, where I got most of my writing done, surrounded by near content-less furnishings, some dismantled, and I’m feeling vaguely ghostly. A spirit haunting premises that were once laden with the imprint of me and are now in the process of reverting to anonymity.
The circumstances are essentially happy, there are no regrets about this move, but there’s a touch of the bittersweet too. I came to live in Shaftesbury (a small town at the northern tip of the county of Dorset, for any readers unfamiliar with the UK) just over three years ago with a very different set of expectations to those I hold now. Some emotional twists and turns awaited me, and some of the expectations were shattered. Yet the town itself drew me into its social life and held a welcome. I chose to stay here.
So the move is not from Shaftesbury, but to another house within the town that’s suitable for myself and partner to share. We haven’t found it yet but getting out of our individual houses first is a part of the process. And this one has done me well enough and been a good home – hence the feelings of which I write.
So up in an attic bedroom whose dormer window looks out to a fairly distant view of the first hills of Cranborne Chase, the boxes are piling up. Although it was one of the house’s most attractive features I never made much use of it until more recent times. The rest of the house was my main domain, the work space here, a smaller first floor bedroom and the ground floor. Being mid-terrace it was cosy and economic to keep warm in winter. I filled the walls with psychedelic and art nouveau-ish artworks and drapes, enjoyed my books and recorded music, shunted ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ out into the world and made a start on novel. All good stuff, and doubtless more to come in new circumstances.
But hey, you probably know what I’m saying. End of a chapter and all that. I’m not going to go on a my usual length. There’s still plenty to be done before it all gets shifted on Thursday and the house will be emptied ready for some repairs to the rather crap chipboard flooring. So this is just a wave and a hello. Normal service to be resumed in two weeks time, more or less.
I leave you with, I hope, a video from YouTube of Loudon Wainwright III’s take on this whole moving thing.
The circumstances are essentially happy, there are no regrets about this move, but there’s a touch of the bittersweet too. I came to live in Shaftesbury (a small town at the northern tip of the county of Dorset, for any readers unfamiliar with the UK) just over three years ago with a very different set of expectations to those I hold now. Some emotional twists and turns awaited me, and some of the expectations were shattered. Yet the town itself drew me into its social life and held a welcome. I chose to stay here.
So the move is not from Shaftesbury, but to another house within the town that’s suitable for myself and partner to share. We haven’t found it yet but getting out of our individual houses first is a part of the process. And this one has done me well enough and been a good home – hence the feelings of which I write.
So up in an attic bedroom whose dormer window looks out to a fairly distant view of the first hills of Cranborne Chase, the boxes are piling up. Although it was one of the house’s most attractive features I never made much use of it until more recent times. The rest of the house was my main domain, the work space here, a smaller first floor bedroom and the ground floor. Being mid-terrace it was cosy and economic to keep warm in winter. I filled the walls with psychedelic and art nouveau-ish artworks and drapes, enjoyed my books and recorded music, shunted ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’ out into the world and made a start on novel. All good stuff, and doubtless more to come in new circumstances.
But hey, you probably know what I’m saying. End of a chapter and all that. I’m not going to go on a my usual length. There’s still plenty to be done before it all gets shifted on Thursday and the house will be emptied ready for some repairs to the rather crap chipboard flooring. So this is just a wave and a hello. Normal service to be resumed in two weeks time, more or less.
I leave you with, I hope, a video from YouTube of Loudon Wainwright III’s take on this whole moving thing.
July 24, 2017
An Invitation
skeletal mysteriesbones on a slabbeyond pale bordersglow extendsand heretouched by symmetryin stark divisionsthe hidden denizenswave into shapeall tendrils and twistshold coilsthat flickerinto and out ofany worldyou careto mentionany worldthat offersan invitation
July 7, 2017
A Blacksmith Courted Me
Running late again, sorry to all who read this with any regularity. An ongoing house move situation is minimizing the time I have for this writing stuff, basically. So here's another older piece.
I've been fascinated by the folk song known as 'The Blacksmith' or 'A Blacksmith Courted Me' ever since I first heard it on an early Steeleye Span album. Like so many ballads, it is riddled with narrative gaps and hints at most regarding what might fill them. What interested me, apart from the beauty of the tune and the poetry of the words, was one of those hints: a suggestion that, despite the apparent betrayal or 'slighting' of the female narrator, she does not bear a grudge. Of course the line: 'I wish them both much joy' could be taken for sarcasm in a bitter reproach. But with my tendency to wilfully misunderstand, I imagined her taking a more philosophical point of view... perhaps.
In what follows, I tried in prose, but often quoting the song (in more than one version) to explore her mindset. There is reference in the song to a period of nine months, an implication that her lovemaking with the blacksmith led to pregnancy and thus the stigma of an illegitimate child. But this - it seems to me - is by no means clear, so in my piece I preferred to think that she had escaped that particular fate. In which case, of course, forgiveness might have come a little more easily.
A Blacksmith Courted Me
Oh what’s the true meaning of all that transpires?
I look in the glass again and again, see only my own wan face, my dark ringed, uncomprehending eyes, and I shake my head once more. And the curls and the tresses around my face do dance and waver as if there had never been strange news, as if he had never gone abroad or stooped to gather the sweet primeroses.
There are stages where these tales are forever acted out. And there are acts, one after another, in which the stages of this tale unfold. With what does it begin? Ah, bliss. It begins with faith, with hope, with love and trust.
It begins with his hammer, striking the anvil, so clever, so steady. The sparks that flew across the smithy. With his smile as he paused to hear my entreaty, a request from my father, shoes for the horses, equipment in need of repair. And his tender eyes as he watched me, clutching my shawl close, a little afraid - for all the times I had walked past the smithy I had never once set foot inside. His broad and sturdy arms. The rosy glow in his cheeks. Oh, I had seen him many a time before. Ours is a small town. But that day I saw as if for the first time. I saw my love.
Said he: “Your father is a good man. This work I’ll do and he’ll settle with me when he can.”
As soon as I was able, I hurried away – for I could barely remain stood fast upon my own two feet, such were the feelings that o’erwhelmed me. Yet why should I mistake kindness for affection? Better not to let imaginings rob me of my good senses.
The trust, it grows, as sapling does to oak, seeming sure and steady. His ready smile and greeting whenever our paths did cross. The light in his eyes that shone for me alone, as he played so neat and trim upon his pipes for the young girls to dance at the summer fair. And then came his letter, the coarse paper near scorched by the ardour of which he wrote. So mayhap the fault is mine. I should not have lain beside him that night. I should have listened to some better counsel. I should not have believed him when he said he’d marry me. When he said he’d not deny me.
And then comes the break - the call to other lands to fight for king and country. Oh, with what concern he’d listen to my entreaties then. “You must not go,” said I, “to where the sun will burn your beauty.” “I cannot stay at home,” said he and spoke of duty. Duty I know. That cannot be denied.
The weeks of waiting. The months. The years. And set to steer me through it all, my wedding plans, my hopes, my foolish dreams. Whilst he did march to fife and drum from battlefield to battlefield. And all would be well if only he lived, had not the call to gather primeroses come upon him.
At last came that news so strange, a whisper from lips to ears, a buzz of words that spreads through the town. “He is married.” How can this be? My love is married to another and will not return to his forge, where I loved so well to watch him at swing with his hammer. I can find no sound meaning in this. And yet it is so.
What was there to be done? A message, perchance? A former claim to consider right well? A protest to rend his heart? Of these I thought, oft, at length, day after day, night after night. But too well I knew what he might say. For witness had I none of what he’d promised. And of where he’d made that promise, I knew I dared not speak.
God may reward him well for the slighting of me. I cannot speak for the Divine Will nor yet, like some practitioner of witchcraft or wizardry, can I seek to sway its course.
If love him still I do, and still do I, then all that’s to be achieved in this the final act is to wish him well. Him and his new love, may they prosper and thrive, may their babies be happy and blessed with health. May he deceive no more.
And there I am, still pale and drawn, staring at myself from out of the glass. Trying to make sense of what I cannot know, that tidal ebb and wash of the human heart, its vagaries, its weakness.
There is but one thing that I can be sure of.
If I was with my love, I’d do my duty.
I've been fascinated by the folk song known as 'The Blacksmith' or 'A Blacksmith Courted Me' ever since I first heard it on an early Steeleye Span album. Like so many ballads, it is riddled with narrative gaps and hints at most regarding what might fill them. What interested me, apart from the beauty of the tune and the poetry of the words, was one of those hints: a suggestion that, despite the apparent betrayal or 'slighting' of the female narrator, she does not bear a grudge. Of course the line: 'I wish them both much joy' could be taken for sarcasm in a bitter reproach. But with my tendency to wilfully misunderstand, I imagined her taking a more philosophical point of view... perhaps.
In what follows, I tried in prose, but often quoting the song (in more than one version) to explore her mindset. There is reference in the song to a period of nine months, an implication that her lovemaking with the blacksmith led to pregnancy and thus the stigma of an illegitimate child. But this - it seems to me - is by no means clear, so in my piece I preferred to think that she had escaped that particular fate. In which case, of course, forgiveness might have come a little more easily.
A Blacksmith Courted Me
Oh what’s the true meaning of all that transpires?
I look in the glass again and again, see only my own wan face, my dark ringed, uncomprehending eyes, and I shake my head once more. And the curls and the tresses around my face do dance and waver as if there had never been strange news, as if he had never gone abroad or stooped to gather the sweet primeroses.
There are stages where these tales are forever acted out. And there are acts, one after another, in which the stages of this tale unfold. With what does it begin? Ah, bliss. It begins with faith, with hope, with love and trust.
It begins with his hammer, striking the anvil, so clever, so steady. The sparks that flew across the smithy. With his smile as he paused to hear my entreaty, a request from my father, shoes for the horses, equipment in need of repair. And his tender eyes as he watched me, clutching my shawl close, a little afraid - for all the times I had walked past the smithy I had never once set foot inside. His broad and sturdy arms. The rosy glow in his cheeks. Oh, I had seen him many a time before. Ours is a small town. But that day I saw as if for the first time. I saw my love.
Said he: “Your father is a good man. This work I’ll do and he’ll settle with me when he can.”
As soon as I was able, I hurried away – for I could barely remain stood fast upon my own two feet, such were the feelings that o’erwhelmed me. Yet why should I mistake kindness for affection? Better not to let imaginings rob me of my good senses.
The trust, it grows, as sapling does to oak, seeming sure and steady. His ready smile and greeting whenever our paths did cross. The light in his eyes that shone for me alone, as he played so neat and trim upon his pipes for the young girls to dance at the summer fair. And then came his letter, the coarse paper near scorched by the ardour of which he wrote. So mayhap the fault is mine. I should not have lain beside him that night. I should have listened to some better counsel. I should not have believed him when he said he’d marry me. When he said he’d not deny me.
And then comes the break - the call to other lands to fight for king and country. Oh, with what concern he’d listen to my entreaties then. “You must not go,” said I, “to where the sun will burn your beauty.” “I cannot stay at home,” said he and spoke of duty. Duty I know. That cannot be denied.
The weeks of waiting. The months. The years. And set to steer me through it all, my wedding plans, my hopes, my foolish dreams. Whilst he did march to fife and drum from battlefield to battlefield. And all would be well if only he lived, had not the call to gather primeroses come upon him.
At last came that news so strange, a whisper from lips to ears, a buzz of words that spreads through the town. “He is married.” How can this be? My love is married to another and will not return to his forge, where I loved so well to watch him at swing with his hammer. I can find no sound meaning in this. And yet it is so.
What was there to be done? A message, perchance? A former claim to consider right well? A protest to rend his heart? Of these I thought, oft, at length, day after day, night after night. But too well I knew what he might say. For witness had I none of what he’d promised. And of where he’d made that promise, I knew I dared not speak.
God may reward him well for the slighting of me. I cannot speak for the Divine Will nor yet, like some practitioner of witchcraft or wizardry, can I seek to sway its course.
If love him still I do, and still do I, then all that’s to be achieved in this the final act is to wish him well. Him and his new love, may they prosper and thrive, may their babies be happy and blessed with health. May he deceive no more.
And there I am, still pale and drawn, staring at myself from out of the glass. Trying to make sense of what I cannot know, that tidal ebb and wash of the human heart, its vagaries, its weakness.
There is but one thing that I can be sure of.
If I was with my love, I’d do my duty.
June 16, 2017
'Famous Author Tours South Wales'
Blogging late this week, having only just returned from a six day trip to South Wales, where I’ve been attempting to promote and sell copies of ‘Wilful Misunderstandings’. The most successful of these attempts was on the last day of the trip, where I’d set myself up as guest reader at the Poems and Pints evening - held on a monthly basis for most of the year at Pontardawe Arts Centre.
On the Saturday prior to that, I’d done a ten minute spot at the Ffwrnes Theatre in Llanelli, during an afternoon event going under the title ‘Spoken Word’. This is usually a completely ‘open mike’ session at which contributors with books to sell have an opportunity to do so during the interval. Rather late in the proceedings I found out that, on this particular day, the session had been merged with a book launch by children’s author Wendy White. Published under the pen-name Sara Gethin, ‘Not Tomos’ is her first book for adults. It deals with issues around child poverty, its narrator a convincingly written five year old boy. On the basis of what I heard in her readings from ‘Not Tomos’ and the talks given by her publisher and Welsh journalist Jon Gower, it promises to be a first rate novel, deserving of success.
Lesson for myself was – don’t try to sell your books at an event like that again. I felt like some weird kind of gatecrasher and it came as no surprise that no one so much as came to look at my book. Why should they? This was, quite rightly, Wendy’s day. Nevertheless I enjoyed the event, from the handful of local readers with which it began to the eye-opening talk regarding the well thought out, enterprising Honno publishing company and the heart-felt speech by Mr. Gower. It was also a pleasure for me to read one of my stories, all written during my time in Wales, to a predominantly Welsh audience.
The days between were partly a holiday for me and my good partner Rachel. A great opportunity to show her some of my old haunts in the Gower. We even got some sunshine. It was also an opportunity to reconnect with old friends. Monday found us in Loughor, guests of the redoubtable Dewi ‘Mav’ Bowen, musician, writer, activist and archaeologist. In fact I’m really keen to big him up as, sociable fellow that he is, he made/answered several phone calls over the day in which all reference to me was as a ‘famous author’ on a ‘South Wales tour’. I think he enjoyed seeing me cringe.
Among his innumerable and utterly splendid achievements, Mav co-runs a folk club which occurs every Monday night, as far as I know without fail, at the Loughor Boat Club on the shore of the estuary. It attracts musicians and singers of mixed ability but strong commitment, and is invariably enjoyable. You start the evening thinking: ‘Yes, this is quite pleasant,’ and then some time after 10pm you find yourself thinking: ‘Fuck me, there are some bloody good musicians in this neck of the woods.’ And that’s nothing to do with the beer because I was on orange juice. Monday night was no exception. We had a fine rendition of the (I suspect quite difficult to play) Mason Williams tune ‘Classical Gas’, two lovely unaccompanied songs by a local singer named Maggie, a sensitively and well played cover of a song from Lal and Mike Waterson’s ‘Bright Phoebus’ album, and finally some shit hot ragtime guitar numbers from a former protégé of Ralph McTell. Oh, and round about the mid point of the evening I got to read out a story, the as-yet unpublished ‘Upright and Grand’. It’s a musical piece, without being music, if you follow me.
Though I wasn’t entirely confident he’d make it, the famous archaeologist turned up on following night as people gathered for the Poems and Pints. As he generally does, these days, Mav was looking stylish in a loudly patterned Californian beach shirt, dark jacket and wide brimmed white hat. It felt good to have him aboard, along with a slew of other good friends who showed up – though it was by no means just my rentacrowd who were present. I used to attend the P&P at Ponty fairly regularly during my time in Wales, and I was well pleased to see many of the old faces there, and a good many new ones too. Amiably MC’d by the poet Glyn Roberts, as it has been now for some years, the event still seems to be thriving.
The way it works, the guest does a twenty minute opening spot, then after the interval there’s an open-mike before the guest closes with another twenty minutes. I kicked off with ‘Enlightenment’ from Wilful Misunderstandings and followed it with three poems, one of which appeared in the Welsh poetry magazine ‘Roundyhouse’. For my second set I did a couple of pieces that have appeared in this blog (‘Nothing’ and ‘I Hope to Write a Garden’), ‘The Long Haul’ from the book, and a poem about a Spanish waiter (Jorge, not Manuel). I got the feeling that I didn’t seriously disappoint anyone and sold a good few books.
Mission accomplished, but what also really stirred me was the open-mike session. Some of my highlights follow. An elderly gent from Bridgend named Wes whose poems I don’t always quite get, but whose passion and delivery invariably move me. A fine and well crafted poem from another reader about a day with his young daughters in Ambleside. Mav’s co-opted chauffeur, the writer John Jenkins reading selections from his words for the ‘Glo Coal’ word, dance, film and song event. And another Ponty regular, the ranting Phil Knight whose quickfire ‘I love Wales’ poem had us all laughing, but contained some nicely presented ironies regarding twenty first century Wales. This is, always has been and will be for as long as it lasts, bloody good stuff. There is, as many have observed, a powerful literary tradition in South Wales, and I feel honoured to have had a taste of it and been allowed a little participation.
And so ended the… uhrm…’famous author’ tour. Next day we were off back to England, visiting one final old friend en route – with whom I’d also met up for the Deke Leonard Memorial Concert in Port Talbot on the previous Saturday night (see my review of that in the next issue of online magazine ‘Gonzo Weekly).
Though I’m resident now for the second time in my life in Dorset, I often say there’s a piece of my heart that I left in South Wales. It appears to be still beating.
On the Saturday prior to that, I’d done a ten minute spot at the Ffwrnes Theatre in Llanelli, during an afternoon event going under the title ‘Spoken Word’. This is usually a completely ‘open mike’ session at which contributors with books to sell have an opportunity to do so during the interval. Rather late in the proceedings I found out that, on this particular day, the session had been merged with a book launch by children’s author Wendy White. Published under the pen-name Sara Gethin, ‘Not Tomos’ is her first book for adults. It deals with issues around child poverty, its narrator a convincingly written five year old boy. On the basis of what I heard in her readings from ‘Not Tomos’ and the talks given by her publisher and Welsh journalist Jon Gower, it promises to be a first rate novel, deserving of success.
Lesson for myself was – don’t try to sell your books at an event like that again. I felt like some weird kind of gatecrasher and it came as no surprise that no one so much as came to look at my book. Why should they? This was, quite rightly, Wendy’s day. Nevertheless I enjoyed the event, from the handful of local readers with which it began to the eye-opening talk regarding the well thought out, enterprising Honno publishing company and the heart-felt speech by Mr. Gower. It was also a pleasure for me to read one of my stories, all written during my time in Wales, to a predominantly Welsh audience.
The days between were partly a holiday for me and my good partner Rachel. A great opportunity to show her some of my old haunts in the Gower. We even got some sunshine. It was also an opportunity to reconnect with old friends. Monday found us in Loughor, guests of the redoubtable Dewi ‘Mav’ Bowen, musician, writer, activist and archaeologist. In fact I’m really keen to big him up as, sociable fellow that he is, he made/answered several phone calls over the day in which all reference to me was as a ‘famous author’ on a ‘South Wales tour’. I think he enjoyed seeing me cringe.
Among his innumerable and utterly splendid achievements, Mav co-runs a folk club which occurs every Monday night, as far as I know without fail, at the Loughor Boat Club on the shore of the estuary. It attracts musicians and singers of mixed ability but strong commitment, and is invariably enjoyable. You start the evening thinking: ‘Yes, this is quite pleasant,’ and then some time after 10pm you find yourself thinking: ‘Fuck me, there are some bloody good musicians in this neck of the woods.’ And that’s nothing to do with the beer because I was on orange juice. Monday night was no exception. We had a fine rendition of the (I suspect quite difficult to play) Mason Williams tune ‘Classical Gas’, two lovely unaccompanied songs by a local singer named Maggie, a sensitively and well played cover of a song from Lal and Mike Waterson’s ‘Bright Phoebus’ album, and finally some shit hot ragtime guitar numbers from a former protégé of Ralph McTell. Oh, and round about the mid point of the evening I got to read out a story, the as-yet unpublished ‘Upright and Grand’. It’s a musical piece, without being music, if you follow me.
Though I wasn’t entirely confident he’d make it, the famous archaeologist turned up on following night as people gathered for the Poems and Pints. As he generally does, these days, Mav was looking stylish in a loudly patterned Californian beach shirt, dark jacket and wide brimmed white hat. It felt good to have him aboard, along with a slew of other good friends who showed up – though it was by no means just my rentacrowd who were present. I used to attend the P&P at Ponty fairly regularly during my time in Wales, and I was well pleased to see many of the old faces there, and a good many new ones too. Amiably MC’d by the poet Glyn Roberts, as it has been now for some years, the event still seems to be thriving.
The way it works, the guest does a twenty minute opening spot, then after the interval there’s an open-mike before the guest closes with another twenty minutes. I kicked off with ‘Enlightenment’ from Wilful Misunderstandings and followed it with three poems, one of which appeared in the Welsh poetry magazine ‘Roundyhouse’. For my second set I did a couple of pieces that have appeared in this blog (‘Nothing’ and ‘I Hope to Write a Garden’), ‘The Long Haul’ from the book, and a poem about a Spanish waiter (Jorge, not Manuel). I got the feeling that I didn’t seriously disappoint anyone and sold a good few books.
Mission accomplished, but what also really stirred me was the open-mike session. Some of my highlights follow. An elderly gent from Bridgend named Wes whose poems I don’t always quite get, but whose passion and delivery invariably move me. A fine and well crafted poem from another reader about a day with his young daughters in Ambleside. Mav’s co-opted chauffeur, the writer John Jenkins reading selections from his words for the ‘Glo Coal’ word, dance, film and song event. And another Ponty regular, the ranting Phil Knight whose quickfire ‘I love Wales’ poem had us all laughing, but contained some nicely presented ironies regarding twenty first century Wales. This is, always has been and will be for as long as it lasts, bloody good stuff. There is, as many have observed, a powerful literary tradition in South Wales, and I feel honoured to have had a taste of it and been allowed a little participation.
And so ended the… uhrm…’famous author’ tour. Next day we were off back to England, visiting one final old friend en route – with whom I’d also met up for the Deke Leonard Memorial Concert in Port Talbot on the previous Saturday night (see my review of that in the next issue of online magazine ‘Gonzo Weekly).
Though I’m resident now for the second time in my life in Dorset, I often say there’s a piece of my heart that I left in South Wales. It appears to be still beating.
May 31, 2017
Stoned Again at Stanton Drew
An inevitably wet UK bank holiday curtailed an expedition to take a look at the Maes Knoll hill and then the stone circles at Stanton Drew in Somerset earlier this week. My fellow traveller and I only got to look at two out of the three circles, and missed the ‘Cove’ and the ‘Quoit’ entirely. But hey, we’d already got soaked going up to the Knoll and we had to make a dash for the church porch to shelter from a further torrential downpour. We hadn’t anticipated the need for total waterproofing. Smartphone predictions let us down. Another such expedition is called for, as and when.
So this is no neo-antiquarian well-informed write-up of serious research, nosirree. This is a bit more personal. I’m trying to figure out what it is that attracts me to these sites, these relics, these objects… Am I doing it because that’s what people do? People of certain types that is, whether Glasto-revering hippies old and young or strictly academic archaeological authorities or those who straddle the divide or just plain sightseers… I can identify to some extent with any of them. Am I romancing? Am I looking for clues in the ever-elusive quest to figure out why us human beings do the things we do? Is it some kind of compulsion to which I’ve succumbed over the years?
I guess it started for me with Stonehenge. I still have, somewhere amongst my random archives, a 60s guide book or leaflet. School trip or family outing, I don’t remember but - as in those days you could - I walked among those megaliths and felt something that stayed with me. Awe? Excitement? A sense of the mystery of pre-history – those stories that we can only speculate upon, based on fragmentary clues with multiple possible interpretations? Some kind of link, in the presence of these objects, with ancestors who placed them in such locations? A sense of the sheer sweat and blood involved, and the conceptual sophistication of their construction? Not only that but the realisation that these things were built to last. Planned obsolescence, the curse of modern times, was not part of their makers’ thinking (an observation I must accredit to my partner, by the way).
So there were values in operation here. Were they values that I might share? Who knows? There are only these elusive clues. Do they have anything in common with that which has been built within times of historical record in the way of locations for divine contemplation – cathedrals, monasteries, temples and the like? It seems hard to deny this possibility. Yet archaeologists joke amongst themselves that ‘ritual significance’ is a catch-all term for ‘we’re not quite sure’.
In my youth, enthralled by psychedelia, I was prepared to buy into the then current speculations about leys (or ‘ley-lines’ as I now gather we mistakenly called them) as energy channels, the earth’s meridians. I can remember a visit to Avebury, some time in the 70s, and touching the stones there, ready to believe that something vaguely mystical would seep into my consciousness and bring me to enlightenment. Didn’t work, I’m sorry to say. Enlightenment requires a bit more effort than stone stroking.
With age, I read more, spoke with enthusiasts for whom a somewhat nuanced view became the norm. And still I sought the stones. The Rollrights, the burial chambers and megaliths and smaller circles that abound in Carmarthenshire and Pembrokeshire, and – not so long ago – my first visit to Long Meg and her Daughters up near Penrith. The folkloric tales that abound around these sites are always fun – people turned to stone for various misdemeanours or whatever, the devil hurling boulders from nearby hills. They wind their way into my imagination and I daydream of these stones coming to life and animation when no one save the dreamer is looking. I’m not sure Mike Parker Pearson would approve, but even he must have his more whimsical moments.
Up at the Long Meg site I tried to channel whatever it was that brought me there. I wrote a poem that touched on some of the questions I’ve listed here. It raised the concept that even the most solid of rock, when looked at in the longest of terms where tectonic plates cause continents to shift and reshape, is mutable. As it will be too in about six billion years, when the sun becomes a ‘subgiant’, doubling in size. In another couple of billion, it is estimated, our planet will melt into it. In this light, there’s a poetic resonance I find to those tales of transformation.
No answers then, just fascination. And the stones themselves – the sheer beauty in their shapes and surfaces. At Stanton Drew, according to the useful write up on the stone-circles.org.uk website, the stones are a mix of limestone, sandstone and breccia – a sort of conglomerate. They are intricately weathered, often pock-marked by erosion, and then – like any rock surface – coloured and patterned by lichens, mosses and other small growing things that lodge in cracks or on ledges. My eye-to-brain channels are in love with the endless abstractions thus created. Nature has been doing Jackson Pollock just about since the world began.
And a final thought. If ever there was room for wilful misunderstandings, surely these are the places. Archaeology constantly refines its comprehension with new equipment, new ideas and interpretations – but mostly, I think, acknowledges that there will never be enough information to give a definitive interpretation. There will always be room for wedding guests or knight-errants turned to stone and for Satan lobbing his lumps of rock.
So maybe I’ve answered my question. But as readers of this blog may have gathered by now, my place is permanently set amongst the bewildered, so I can never quite be sure…
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If you want to know more about the middle path approach of neo-antiquarianism, check out www.northernearth.co.uk/ and maybe take out a sub. With regard to Stonehenge and the apparently
inadequate proposal to tunnel the A303 below it you might want to take a look at www.stonehengealliance.
org.uk where there's a petition you can sign if it's a concern of yours.
