Mumbling Into The Void (slight return)

 So I was going to tell you about Paris, wasn't I? It was one of the things that linked to Reward. It was a sixth form trip. February 81. very close to the release of Reward. I know this. Or remember this. Because I had it own a mix tape for the coach.  The tape is the point. The various tapes are the point. We'll get to that point, those tapes. And one tape in particular: Debbie Lee's tape.  It was the holiday that saw a bunch of us drinking in a small bar with the teachers, possibly not all the teachers but certainly some, getting absolutely destroyed in Paris knowing that we had to take a coach to the Loire valley the next morning. It wasn't a comfortable coach journey. Green cords. I remember I was wearing green cords. Not entirely sure why, must have been a 1981 thing. Perhaps I hadn't yet discovered taste or judgement. We were playing Defender on a machine in the corner. In French. No idea what instructions we were supposed to be following. Months before The C...

There was one minor negative from the run of Girls Don't Play Guitars at the Royal Court.  I'd leant a few things to the production; my Vox amp, my bass, a couple of guitar straps. That kind of thing. Other people had loaned us stuff as well - Dan Rodgers leant us a really nice, road worn Vox amp (much older and more authentic than mine), Liam Gardner gave us the use of his short scale, very Lennon-esque Rickenbacker which Lisa played through the run. Both wonderfully kind things to do. On the Monday after the final show, I headed into town to pick up my stuff. I ended ups down a nice Fender guitar strap but up an equally nice, and far more expensive, hard case that would suit a Gibson Les Paul. I don't own a Gibson Les Paul. I need to return that, it belongs to someone. Covid kind of put paid to the returning. Yet another very minor convenience. None of which this is about. This is about a badge. I'm not really one for badges, never wear them, but in the eighties I had...

 The little moments that bring up the people who are gone: I was in the car on the way home from the match today (noon kick off); the phone ins and analysis had ended by the time I got to where I was parked so I had 6 Music on. Guy Garvey was playing 'Smoke' by The Smile, which Thom Yorke and Jonny Greenwood from Radiohead and a drummer whose name and CV I've forgotten. I didn't expect much from the song, Radiohead lost me a long time ago, but Guy compared it to Can's song Vitamin C and the way Talk Talk used woodwind, so that's enough to make me listen. It was excellent; melodic, haunting, rhythmic and the vocals had the clarity that Radiohead had before they discovered the  strategy of deconstructing tunes as a way to confound and confuse. Then Guy played Can's Vitamin C to show us what he meant. As I reached Dunnings Bridge on the last stretch home (with the traffic to the M57 junction becoming hideous) he played Bob Marly - No Woman No Cry (live from The...

 Yesterday's contemplation of the Scottish edition of my own radio show from years ago led to a mate tweeting me and asking, "Have you ever heard Karine Polwart's Scottish Songbook?" I hadn't but I had a look at it, had a listen to it and was taken immediately. She was covering The Blue Nile's 'Rags To Riches', The Waterboys' 'Whole Of The Moon', Strawberry Switchblade's sublime 'Since Yesterday' (which was the deal clincher for me) and a whole load of others. Including this: A Big Country song. A bloody wonderful Big Country song. And let's be honest, in 82/83 there were a lot of us who were of the opinion that Big Country were the next band that would matter as much as The Jam did. That didn't happen but those early gigs, god they were something. The band quickly gained this reputation as 'the group with guitars that sound like bagpipes' but that was never true. They never really sounded like bagpipes, they jus...

songs-they-never-play-on-the-radio-scotland-the-brave I'm writing a press release. I *hate* writing press releases. It might be my least favourite part of the whole gig. Dialogue. I love writing dialogue. It's truly the single thing I'm best at. It's what I do. I make characters talk. I know this anyway but I've had enough people tell me how good I am at this part of the job that I'm more than prepared to take it as a thing. I'm not going to assume any false modesty on this one; I put people in a room and I make them talk to each other. With simple rules: nothing that wouldn't be said in conversation can be said on stage, anything that would be said, can be said. Sounds obvious, sounds simple; think about the time you've heard character speak and your reaction has been, "people don't talk like that." I make characters talk in the way people talk in the real world.  They'll never explain to each other things that you wouldn't exp...

I have a bookmark. I have several bookmarks, one's a leather bookmark from the seventies, used to belong to my granddad, it's currently keeping my place in a copy of then first volume of the collected Cerebus The Aardvark that I bought when we lived in Leeds (been back in Liverpool since July 94) and started reading in the sunshine of the first lockdown. The specific bookmark we're talking about though? It's a free bookmark from Waterstones. Probably from sometime in the 90s, feels like that's pow long I've had it. I assume they produced a series, all with literary quotations.  The quotation on this one? "We keep passing unseen through little moments of other people's lives."  Robert M. Pirsig: Zen And The Art Of Motorcycle Maintenance I love that quote. I've loved it since I first read it somewhere about 1980. It's a sentiment that makes you (well, me) feel both tiny and unnoticed and extremely special at the same time. Bering unseen doesn...

 I think what this is probably going to be about is how wrong we can be in our expectations of the happiness of others, our understanding of what they want and what they actually need (to semi steal a Bob Dylan lyric). J was working in the study yesterday. Some days she does this, some days she uses the living room; it's warmer. And on the days that she uses the study as a workplace, the music changes.  I know that not everything I listen to is to the tastes of all. On the days that we share the same workspace I'll opt for the safe and the tuneful, avoid the more outre  aspects of my record collection. As someone who'll happily listen to Trout Mask Replica for enjoyment, listen to Lou Reed's Metal Machine Music and find beauty in the oscillations of the feedback, listen to The Jesus And Mary Chain and swear blind that it's pop music, I'm aware that there are songs and albums that are uncomfortable for others. I know that John Cale's music For A New Society i...

Right. Third time round for this. First version was miserable. Just a litany of complaints.  Second time was a fresh start on my phone in the optician's waiting room (lasered years ago, now need reading glasses and a set of distance for the match - the middle bit's great though and it was a life changer for a decade so all good), curtailed by the optician appearing.  So, third time round. Third version, third subject, third approach. It's 1986 again. July 86. I met this girl a couple of weeks ago, saw her properly for the first time last Monday and now we're in work mode. I don't work for HMV yet. Not directly. I'm working in Revolver Records on Lord Street, opposite BHS (still got a couple of Revolver carrier bags somewhere in the house, a throwback to the days when we'd play 'spot the Revolver bag' in the bus queues over the road. We;'re owned by HMNV but nobody really talks about that. We're a different thing. Pete McGrath is in charge. I ...