It's 11.40am. J's asleep. Up at 4 this morning when Daisy (the new kitten, arrived Saturday - I say arrived, we drove a long way and got her, she didn't just rock up on the door) realised that she was alone and started shouting about the fact.
This is one of her initial tricks/misgivings/apprehensions: if she can't see you, she assumes you've gone away and 'mows' loudly (she's not really doing a meow yet, more just a 'mow'). I was having breakfast, she was hiding under the cushions on the couch - another of her current initial favourite things - and shouting for me. I step into her field of vision, she stops, reassured. I sit down, she starts again.
I thought I might have to take the MacBook to the dining table rather than move here to to the study where my desk and - crucially - much of my music lives.
I think I've got away with it. So I'm at work. Some admin emails to run, a ten page proposal to dig into in some real depth. This to do.
But then there are the other complications.
We're going to see Les Miserables tonight. After at least a decade of people telling me we should. I've always been wary. In listened to the soundtrack album years ago and didn't actually like it. Which is an issue for a musical. But everyone tells me that seeing it live is important, that the production is the thing, that the current production is incredible, that when I see it I'll 'get' it. So we're going.
But there was no sign of the tickets. 'Search your inbox/junk etc for ATG Tickets' said the original email. No sign. So I submitted a request on line, which they'll probably look at sometime next week, and rang the box office number - whose waiting time was 30 minutes.
15 minutes in, I find the tickets. Under 'box office'. Great, thanks, dead organised.
Then there was the MOT. Vauxhall Corsa. Not that old. Failed because the engine management light had come on. And a list of advisories. Strong advisories.
So I chose to go with the diagnostics that needed doing and sort the 'advisories' later. And let's be honest on two things here:
1. Most of us are suspicious that 'advisories' are just a good way of selling a few extras that you don't need.
2. I clearly know bugger all about cars/engines/anything vaguely practical and anyone who looks at me can see that coming a mile off so they can usually convince me of anything. There are people who do practical things but are they any good at dialogue?
So, end result - I've paid fifty quid for the garage to run some diagnostics and find there was nothing wrong and it might need a software update. Sound. But better than the 700 quid of advisory stuff. I mean, does anyone *really* need a new pollen filter? Polluted air might make you ill? Okay, there's this whole airborne thing floating round, think I'll take my chances with the pollen.
Anyway. Music.
John Cale.
This.
1982. I already knew John Cale. Cale solo and Cale with The Velvet Underground. Though, as I recall, I heard Cale solo before I heard him with the Velvets. I think I may be alone in discovering him that way, I'm sure it's uncommon.
I came to Cale in 81. Early 81 as I recall. Honi Soit Qui Mal Y Pense. Reviewed in NME in glowing terms. Compared to The Teardrop Explodes, which worked for me. The reviewer decided that the use of trumpets on opening track 'Dead Or Alive' showed that Cale had been listening toe the Teardrops as much as the Teardrops had been listening to Cale.
All my musical heroes were talking about the Velvets. Every band in Liverpool loved the Velvets. Which didn't necessarily mean you could find their stuff that easily, that's not how the world worked then.
So I knew 'of' the Velvets. Knew I should listen. And when I finally heard them I started a life long love affair that will never end. But for now, all I could do was buy this weirdly multi-coloured passport photo adorned album filled with great, slightly off kilter, pop songs. Filled with melody and quite bright.
That cover? That Honi Soit cover? The reviewer said it was, "by Andy. Of Course." I was 17, knew nothing, didn't have a clue what that sentence meant, or who 'Andy' might be.
That was 81. 82 I'm in Chapter One on London Road, a fine comic shop with older issues sitting in tatty cardboard boxes in no particular order that I remember. Years later I would get to meet Alan Moore there, have him sign my copy of the first issue of Watchmen. Slightly later still meet Neil Gaiman and end up attending a handful of meetings of the Society of Strip Illustrators in Sloane Square on his recommendation.
This day though? This day the comic shop was playing an album.
"What's that?" I asked. And they held up the cover you can see just after my MOT complaints.
I didn't buy it. Anywhere. I don't know why. It's a masterpiece, a unique album, an unsettling listen. Which is fine by me. It's exactly the kind of album I wanted at 18 (which I was then), which is exactly the kind of album I'd want now. I bought it on CD upon re-release in 1993 and nearly bought it on vinyl last Friday, just to have it. I didn't. I don't need it twice, do I? But I do. Of course I do. It's a very 'me' album: it's dark, it's gloomy, it's slightly off centre, does things that might make people bristle, it's not an easy listen, it's not something that would ever trouble charts. People who buy Adele records (and there's nothing wrong with that, those albums make a lot of people very happy) are patently *not* buying Music For A New Society.
That new society that Cale's making music for? Possibly not a pleasant place, not given the sounds we're encountering here.
The tasteful gentle opening electric piano chords of Taking Your Life In Your Hands may incline you to the idea that a pleasant ballad is on its way. But then John drives, then noises start muttering in the background, the echoes feel wrong, feel far too far away, strings start to threaten you with strange violence. There's a dark dream going on. And that's how the album moves on: harpsichords, violins, radio broadcasts, voices from the ether. Things are falling apart around you. Machinery clanks somewhere in the distance, so much of what's going on is unrecognisable, the people populating the songs are troubled and broken, their lives shrouded in sadness and soundtracked by music boxes and classical pieces. Beethoven's Ode To Joy appears and contains more threat than joy, (I Keep A) Close Watch pilfers lyrics from Johnny Cash but sounds nothing like any country you've ever heard. It also contains one of the only valid uses of bagpipes in the history of music.
Then there's Thoughtless Kind. A revisiting of one of his earlier works with more trouble in its heart. It tells us that they were 'the best of times' in away that makes sure you're certain that those times are never coming back. And probably weren't that good anyway. Somebody's striking a pipe, there's laughter but it's not happy, it's manic. And 'something' is grinding its gears, pretending to be a rhythm track. Oh, and the other 'only' valid use of bagpipes.
It's heartbreakingly beautiful. It all is. Not a society you'd want to live in; so, perfectly suited to the one that we now have.
(After all that, here's a photo of Daisy hiding behind cushions to make you go 'aaah')
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