The awful title belies the quality (6/8/15)

I've had two weeks to think about this. Two weeks where I thought I'd be able to work out how I was going to do it, how I was going to do it justice. Two weeks to plan, to shape, to give form, to structure.

No. If anything, it's become more dreamlike, more surreal, more fantastic, more unique; a thing of fragments, dreams and memories. So let's treat it like a thing of fragments and dreams, let's treat it in the way that memories should be treated; let's treat it as something that's just beyond the grasp of reasoning with. Let's treat it as a fleeting moment of beauty and brilliance.

I thought about where I wanted to put this. Thought about a website or two where it would sit as a review but it didn't feel like a review, it felt too personal to be something as simple as review; there was too much of actual life in it for that. There should always be too much actual life in music for that music to be dealt with in something as simple and limited as a review. I wasn't comfortable with the idea of putting a corporate identity on the thoughts that were running round - you know, the sites where the word 'I' becomes 'this writer' or 'your reviewer' or the site's name? The 'I' is important. The 'I' is everything. The 'I' is what connects with the music.

I was thinking this as we flew in from Gran Canaria on Monday night, with Monday night becoming Tuesday morning before we'd actually taken off. The moment when you arrive at the airport to find that your flight is already two and a half hours late. And as we sat in the air, somewhere over the water below the South of England, above the clouds, racing the moon, watching beautiful lightning storms flashing below us I had only one album that I wanted to listen to. The first music that I'd chosen to listen to in a week despite having both my iPods - and, therefore, every piece of music that I own - with me. Music I'd chosen. Not the Spanish duos from the hotel (Spanish? Probably Canarian if we're being precise), both duos separately insisting on bizarrely cheerful readings of Creedence's apocalyptic 'Have You Ever Seen The Rain?' Both missing the anti-Vietnam subtext by some distance, the foreboding lost in translation.

There is very little in the world that is quite like the album that I chose, that I need to listen to - 'Michael Head Introducing The Strands: The Magical World of The Strands'

- I've often wondered if the 'Strands' of that name were a reference to Bootle's wonderful New Strand shopping centre or if they were a more metaphorical strain of 'strand', something tenuous pulling things together, loose, frayed connections. The nature of the album may sit in that thought; the spiritual and the commonplace sitting together, both equally important, both necessary. The nature of much of Michael Head's (let's call him Mick, it's what people actually call him)work may sit in that thought. The mystical and the mundane, linked, inseparable, lost in a dream -

The things that are like 'The Strands' then? Astral Weeks, the work of Nick Drake, Forever Changes, possibly the dream reverie of the last two Talk Talk albums though there's more life, more urgency, more rhythm to 'The Strands'. Other than that? Very little. The spirit is unique, the feel is - let's use the word again - dreamlike.

And the album sits within life. Obviously the life of those who made it but also within that of those who heard it. For me, it's one of the essentials. 1997. Eldest son less than a year old, money obviously at a premium as it always is with a young child in the family. You make your purchases sparingly, you prioritise your spending, you don't indulge. 'The Magical World of The Strands' wasn't an indulgence, it was a necessity. J bought it for me. Knew how important it was. Almost fifteen years into watching the career of the man behind the Pale Fountains and Shack, almost fifteen years of being convinced that we had a major talent being ignored - all the major talents get ignored, the world accepts talent shows with the talentless and ignores the people that create greatness.

I could tell you here how record stores worked back in the day when they were great and I could tell you exactly 'how' 'Introducing The Strands' came to hit the shelves after only being released in France  initially but it's a thing of ego and hubris and neither are needed here and now. Suffice to say, the album hit these shores, J bought me the album - the fact that J bought me it is vital here, it's a moment of understanding, of getting it, it's part of who she is and who we are and it's never forgotten and it's entwined with the album - and it's remained with me ever since and it's revisited constantly. The most recent revisiting? Now. As I write. It was, is and always will be, perfection. And it's been rereleased so you can all buy it. And you all should.

We were talking in the car down to London. Two weeks ago. Two weeks ago roughly now. Talking about Comedy. Comedy from HMS Fable, from the height of Britpop, from the time when NME went for Mick very heavily; front covers, greatest British songwriter tags, all deserved, all accurate. Comedy, a song that should have been number one for about a year, a song that wasn't. It may be the greatest thing you've never heard. Unless you've heard it in which case, you know don't you?

And Jonny pointed out that Comedy - 1999 - was on a bootleg from a Pale Fountains gig in 1986. Thirteen years. Thirteen years that you can sit on a song before release. Thirteen years that you can sit on an absolute stone cold classic before release.

And we talked about the prospect of hearing that song, live, that night. That night that was ahead of us at that point and now lies dreamlike in the two weeks ago.

And we agreed that it was unlikely.

And Shona sat in the back seat and rehearsed her vocal line for that evening. Her vocal line for 'Bicycle Thieves' from the second Pale Fountains album. From an album that I bought in 1985. From an album that I bought 30 years ago when I was 21. A lifetime ago. A different life. And I wondered how I'd got here.

It was Twitter. A direct message on Twitter. From a bloke called Si who'd read a piece that I'd written. That I'd written here and then placed on Sabotage Times. A piece where I described 'Newby Street' as the best song that I'd heard in twenty years, a claim that I stood by until Si showed me a performance of 'Velvets In The Dark' on his phone. A performance from the Union Chapel in London that I watched in a cafe in Liverpool. A song that made me realise I was wrong on Newby Street. THIS was the best song I'd heard in twenty years. This may well be the best song I'd ever heard. Within eighteen months, I was playing the guitar that it was played on, that it had been played on less than two hours before. That's how cool life gets sometimes. And you don't get to find out how that happened, just that it did. The fact that it did is ridiculous and amazing and testimony to the kind of thing that can happen when you take a leap of faith.

And through Si - and none of this happens without Si - I produced a concert film. I produced a film of a very special Michael Head and The Red Elastic Band - new band, new concept, it's whoever Mick plays with on the night, it floats, it changes - performance at the spectacular St George's Hall. It's done, it's just a case of figuring out what happens with it now. And on the night that we filmed it we saw possibly the most genuinely 'special' show that I'd ever seen. Until two weeks ago tonight.

Two weeks ago, Michael Head played 'A Summer Evening Of Music' at The Olde Church in Stoke Newington. Family and friends, invitation only. Last minute, secret. One of those shows that you hear about later and wish you'd been there. One of those shows that people will say that they were at but only the hundred of us who were in the room will know that we were genuinely there.

I'd produced the film, I'd produced the two videos for the last single using the great photography of John Johnson - another ex-HMV employee, there's tons of us, we're all over the place doing interesting things - and utilising the lovely iMovie thing on this mac, I'd met Mick briefly at both St George's Hall and Hebden Bridge. I was lucky. I was invited.

I say this like these are just things that happen, things that I do now but it works like this - all this is easy, say yes to interesting things, be prepared to try things, do things, see what looks fun, what you want to do and do it. You'll be amazed at what happens. Amazing things happen.

What happened was this; on a warm evening in late July I found myself sitting in an old church in London with a lad I'd met at nine that morning and a girl who sings for The Farm and for Mick Head. And we sat and watched a soundcheck and we (me, Jonny and John) went for a coffee and the girl in the cafe asked me what language we were speaking and I had to explain that it genuinely WAS English but specifically Scouse and more specifically North End Scouse which is a thing all to itself anyway and then we watched a gig. We watched more than a gig, way more.

A small church. Incense, flowers, low lights, seating, reverence of the most appropriate kind. Support from the talented John McCullagh and from Si who'd made all this happen and was now supporting Mick Head live and there's no way he'd ever dreamt that one either. And then .....

Alone on stage, just a couple of acoustic guitars, a six string, a twelve string, Michael Head. Solo. With guests. John McCullagh on harmonica for two songs, Shona Carmen duetting as impressively as we knew she would, Mick's sister Joanne delivering the chilling Daniella from Fable in a Lee and Nancy style but other than that, Michael Head, alone and immaculate.

Strong vocals, passionate delivery, Mick's utterly, honestly, unique guitar picking style. Perfection. Music from the entire career of an immaculate songwriter. Songs from the perfect and now available again 'Strands' album in amongst all that. Revised again, vital and important. An hour on stage that could have been two, could have been three, could have kept going on forever. The sort of night where the only sane question let at the end is 'can we do all this again tomorrow?'

- and tomorrow and tomorrow and all the tomorrows and can we have this song as well and this song as well and this and this.........

and we got the song we didn't think we'd get. Got the song that we didn't think we'd ever get. Got the song that I only realised after studying every frame of the St George's Hall set about a thousand times that we very nearly got at that show. Comedy. We got Comedy. Ten years after anyone last heard it live, we got Comedy.

And that's not even the best bit. That's amazing but not the best bit. The best bit is the being there. The best bit is being lucky enough to be there. The best bit is the way that it all links back to everything else and ties itself together with every moment that you ever spent listening to this incredible music. The best bit is being there as a songwriter enters the peak of his powers.

That's how I remember it. Feels like a dream.