Pegged

Some good news on the iconic ancient game front though. On my recent trip to visit the Aged Ps in not-so-sunny Devon I did manage to rescue my original 70s copy of the seminal code-breaking game 'Mastermind' from the toy cupboard in the spare room before my Dad took it to the charity shop as he has done (quite rightly) with everything else from this period of my childhood.

You will recall that this classic from Invicta Plastics, Oadby, Leics (Game Of The Year 1973!) involved attemping to deduce via structured logical thought (or guessing) your opponent's combination of coloured pegs in as few tries as possible whilst he 'marked' you with little white and black pegs.

Me and my friend Brian were both quite good at it, having passed many a rainy afternoon playing it.

And there are a lot of rainy afternoons in the winter in Devon, I can tell you.

Completist that I am, I also had the 'pocket' and 'word' variants: no doubt these are going for a fortune on ebay right now. Or not.

Anyway, in what I considered a marvellous generation-spanning moment last week I introduced the game to my eldest daughter, who is 8, and set her a devilishly tricky code to crack. She got it in four moves. Harrumph.

Remember this?

Furniture - 'Brilliant Mind' (1986)

[Read about the 30 years-on reunion of 'Mastermind' 'cover stars' Bill Woodward and Cecilia Fung here. No, really]

Twisted

STOP PRESS: 'A Japanese teenager has won the Rubik's Cube World Championships in Hungary's capital, Budapest, taking less than 13 seconds to finish the cult 80s puzzle' [BBC News]

Sheesh. I've had mine 25 piggin' years and I still can't bloody well do it.

Mashed

Evidently Those In The Know have been aware of this track for ages but since I am clearly Not In The Know I am afraid that it has only just come to my attention - and then only thanks to my good friend Dr. Al.

I find it a hoot - and strangely life-affirming.

According to Wiki there's a little Aerosmith via Eminem in the 'mash' too, aside from the obvious Travis/Oasis/Green Day. Always like a grating of nutmeg myself.

Party Ben - 'Boulevard Of Broken Songs' (2004)

[Lots more of this sort of thing to download at Party Ben's site, where he also reveals that he used the Eminem because he didn't have any actual Aerosmith and couldn't get any off iTunes. Bless].

In The Beginning

I remember just two LPs. They stood leaning against the side of my parents' 'radiogram' in the front room we only sat in on Sundays and they were the copy of The Beatles' 'Help!' my 17 year old brother left behind when he went to join the Navy, and The Seekers 'Come The Day'.

Later, my Mum & Dad bought 'The Very Best Of The Seekers' too.

When I hear this music now I am instantly three again – and nothing else does that, except maybe the smell of real (pre-'smokeless') coal fires coming out of chimneys on a cold winter night.

I think I am still in love with Judith Durham, by the way.

The Seekers - 'I'll Never Find Another You' (1965)

Thanks for all the kind comments to 'Blub' x

Blub

This blog is one. I believe this is a traditional excuse for self-congratulation, big shout outs to fellow bloggers and friends, fave track re-posts, Oscar acceptance speech-type mallarkey and a picture of a frickin' cake with a candle in it.

Yes, there is massive disappearing-up-one's-own-arse potential here.

So let's not do any of that eh? EXCEPT the thanking bit, because when I started this a year ago I thought no-one was listening and I didn't care and I thought I was some sort of 'writer' which I'm not and instead what this thing has done for me is help me make loads and loads of new friends none of whom I have actually met - although Ally and I came close when I was in Manchester but she was washing her hair that night, oh my good gawd.

So, at the risk of coming over like a Jamelia album credit (and thanx to GOD!! I LOVE U!!! THIS ALBUM'S FOR U!!!) please may I send out big thanks and kissies for 12 months of good vibes, inspiration, comments, encouragement and claptrap to, in particular...the aforementioned alleged Faithfull-lookalike, Crash (who left the first ever comment), Darcy, DVD (please start blogging yourself old bean), Emmett, JC (also one this week), Lee, Liz (come back!), Matthew, Michael, Mick, Mondo, Rob, Steve and, still having his internet connection dug up, Tutu Vicar. For their often beautiful, always interesting, frequently iconoclastic and in the end just downright individual blogs also to Beth & Howard, Brent, Joe C, Monkey, peteski and The Vinyl District (but please tell us your name because we can't call you VD). Hugs too to everyone else who checks in here regularly and/or comments; please don't think I've forgotten you just because I haven't mentioned you by name.

Finally to Colin, whose 'Let's Kiss And Make Up' was the first mp3 blog I ever looked at and who still sets the standard to which I humbly aspire.

Shit. It turned in to Gwynnie at the Oscars after all.

All rise for the blog title song.

Bob Dylan - 'Visions Of Johanna' (live acoustic in London, 1966)

Normal service resumed tomorrow.

Harperpost

I was interested to read over at Jude Rogers' blog that the critically-lauded harpist and (for me) strangely wailing banshee Joanna Newsom was 'supported' at her concert at the Royal Albert Hall recently by none other than Mr Roy Harper, genius poet and singer of these Isles.

Surely it should have been the other way round? i.e...trendy strange waif backs up bona fide Britfolk/rock legend at big town comeback gig??

There is no justice in the world. Obviously.

I LOVE Roy Harper.

This is the man who gave us, to name but a few...'Another Day' (think the This Mortal Coil cover is superb? And it is! Well hear his original, The Most Played Song On My iPod 2005-2007: FACT!), 'One Of Those Days In England', 'The Same Old Rock' and 'Cherishing The Lonesome', sang lead on The Floyd's 'Have A Cigar', had a whole Led Zep song dedicated to him, made Johnny Marr's favourite lost album of all time, sired a genius-in-his-own-right songwriter and guitarist AND recorded these - two of the loveliest songs for the ending of summer and the onset of autumn that you will ever hear.

That's the Grimethorpe Colliery Brass Band on 'Cricketer' - and they never fail to bring tears to my bloodshot eyes.

If you are hearing these songs for the first time ever, I genuinely, genuinely envy you...

Roy Harper - 'When An Old Cricketer Leaves The Crease' (1975)
Roy Harper - 'The Flycatcher' (1980)

[Originally from this and this; but both now available on this]

[Footnote - 'Cricketer': 'Legendary British DJ John Peel made an agreement with his producer John Walters that in the event of Peel's death, Walters would play the song. Unfortunately, Walters died in 2001, making the agreement redundant. Nevertheless, the song was still played in tribute to Peel on several radio stations after his death in 2004' - Wikipedia]

[And! Nick Harper's lovely 'Riversong' is playing over at Barefoot In The Head. Ain't I good to yooz?]

Weirder

Of course it goes without saying, but I'm going to say it anyway, there would have been no Korgis without 10CC. And sorry, all 'post-modern', clever clever, nudge-nudge wink-wink irony bollocks aside, I absolutely chuffing well love this. I know! It's not even an OBSCURE 10CC track! (such things must surely exist? No?). It's not a lost gem from an otherwise pants-rated album! It's not an early acoustic demo scratched out pre-fame in a barbiturate-fuelled fug! NO! It's the one, Simon Bates Our Tune spinning, solid gold FM local radio station-loving, disco-snogging classic. *sigh*

It really is true that the woman on the 'big boys don't cry' spoken word bit (Kathy Warren) was the receptionist at the recording studio, drafted in at the last minute to smoulder. Hey, but you knew that.

.

Did you also know though that vocalist/guitarist Graham Gouldman was a former member of the Mockingbirds who had written hits for Jeff Beck, the Yardbirds, the Hollies and Herman's Hermits, singer/guitarist Eric Stewart was a former member of Wayne Fontana & The Mindbenders and that they originally got together with studio musos Lol Creme and Kevin Godley in 1970 as a session band called Hotlegs and had a surprise hit with "Neanderthal Man" ?

Did you WANT to?

You didn't? Tchh! Indie kid!

10CC - 'I'm Not In Love' (1975)

Go on, 'save target as' - you know you want to.

(Time for my medication. Draw the curtains. It's OK. I'll be fine).

Weird

I have absolutely no bloody idea why I have had this in my head all day today but I don't see why I should suffer alone, so I'm sharing it with you.

I HAVE this, on single, from 1979 - yes! the year of 'Setting Sons' and 'London Calling' and 'Armed Forces' and 'The Specials' and 'Unknown Pleasures' (I have all those too).

I have nothing else by this band. Not even the more famous, bigger hit 'Everybody's Gotta Learn Sometime'.

Why should it bubble up from the primordial depths of my consciousness now?

Am I weird? I mean, does anyone else like The Korgis??

The Korgis - 'If I Had You' (1979)

Where The Railroad Meets The Sea

I have an unexpected day free tomorrow and in a carpe diem moment am taking the chance to visit The Aged Parents in South Devon. I'll be taking the train down from London and the journey will take me along one of the most beautiful stretches of railway in Britain - Isambard Kingdom Brunel's Dawlish section of the Exeter-Plymouth railway.

When the train leaves Exeter (last outpost of culture - a University, a cathedral, some bookshops!) it slips alongside the Exe estuary and you get this beautiful calm panorama of the river, the sandflats and the soft, distant hills beyond. At the mouth of the Exe, the train rounds Dawlish Warren, a duny sandspit with mini-golf and a few huddled beach huts, and then the drama begins; for the next few miles the track hugs the red sandstone cliffs on the right and on the left there is nothing between you and the open sea.

It's a calm day in the picture, but even on those the spray hits the train windows; on bleak winter days huge waves crash over the trains, the tracks and everything. Sea, shingle and storm debris frequently close the line. It's the most expensively-maintained stretch of railway in Europe and climate change is making things worse. There's talk of re-routing the whole section. God though, it's beautiful.

There's no interwebby in Devon: well, there is, but not in the home of The Aged Ps. So I'll be silent for a while. Back for the weekend, crashing surf notwithstanding...

Here are three very special songs that will soundtrack my journey.

Heidi Berry - 'Northshore Train' (1989)
Cocteau Twins - 'Road, River And Rail' (1990)
David Sylvian - 'Where The Railroad Meets The Sea' (1986)

And yes, I know it's about the wrong sort of station, but this seems kind of appropriate too...

The Field Mice - 'Coach Station Reunion' (1991)

[from this (more about her here), this, this and this - but I expect you knew that already]

Strangely Enough I Been Struck

I have told the tale here before of my glamorous days as a DJ at South London's fantabulous Hospital Radio Nine - drafty gothic tower studio in boiled cabbage and urine-scented psychiatric hospital, etc: happy days! - and this track evokes that time of my life for me more than many.

I would fair bounce up Tooting High Rd with my record bag on my back and this in my head, so excited about playing it, so excited by the whole jazz hip-hop thing, in fact - that these smart young black kids were rapping about relationship stuff, a genre taboo, over samples from old jazz-funk and Blue Note records: maaan, it felt like such a breath of fresh air...

Actually Guru, the prime mover of Gang Starr (and the man behind Jazzmatazz too) was not so young - he was about my age, and maybe that explained why I identified with the sensibility at work here.

Anyway, I still think this sounds great and rather than save it for a Friday Night Funk-Out I thought I'd 'drop' it as a Monday heart-starter: get you going at the beginning of the week, all that.

Apparently the samples are 'Trying To Make A Fool Of Me' by The Delfonics, 'Pain' and 'Never Had A Dream' by The Ohio Players and 'Ain't There Something Money Can't Buy' by Young-Holt Unlimited: since I've heard all these except the last, I assume that's the source of the wonderful central horn riff, but maybe there's a Darcy-esque soul-funk expert out there who can confirm that.

Enjoy.

Gang Starr - 'Lovesick' ('Upbeat Mix') (1991)

"Didn't Even Have To Use My AK"

Ah, bliss, you know how it goes sometimes...

Your mum cooks you a pork-free breakfast, you trash the guys at basketball and you finally get to shag that girl you've fancied for years. What's more, nobody you know gets killed in South Central LA...

Ice Cube - 'It Was A Good Day' (1992)

[And all to an Isleys sample. From this. 'Parental advisory' - etc, etc]

Country Darkness

I found this review of PJ Harvey's new album 'White Chalk' in the Observer Music Monthly at the weekend really intriguing, and the 'advance tracks' that are bobbing about the internet confirm that this one's going to represent a fair departure for Dorset's Polly Jean.

She's singing in a 'different' voice, has dropped the electric guitar for (mostly) piano and all in all is coming on like a Victorian Gothic Vashti Bunyan. Nice one!

Have to say I love the title track and the single (below) though was less convinced, on first listen at least, by a track called 'Mountain' which I found more than a tad, er, caterwauly.

I deeply admire her for innovating though, and Dark Pastoral is surely the zeitgeist again now we're all snapping up reissues of Anne Briggs albums.

You can pre-order 'White Chalk' here.

PJ Harvey - 'White Chalk' (2007)
PJ Harvey - 'When Under Ether' (2007)

[I'll be leaving these up for just one week officer].

Cold Snaps

Sharp sun, blue skies and crisp cold here today - real autumn.

Look, some blackberries have still to ripen.

And I found some conkers my girls haven't gathered yet (their room is full of them).

So I think I at last get to post this...

Coldcut - 'Autumn Leaves' (Irresistible Force Full Chill Mix) (1993)

[Realise the lovely original was written in France in 1945 and you get a whole new perspective on its sadness and sense of loss. The French lyrics ('Les Feuilles Mortes') were by the poet Jacques Prevert. And speaking of poetry, may I also recommend the 1958 Miles Davis version with Cannonball Adderley from this ? Ta.]

Lost Just What It Takes To Be Honest?

I'm late with this I know, but it's been bringing me so much joy since Michael posted arguably the best tracks from it and inspired me to invest in a copy that I now have to share it with you - and maybe that'll be OK if you've missed it until now too...?

Paddy McAloon's acoustic re-recording of eight tracks from Prefab Sprout's Steve McQueen (made to accompany the album's 'legacy edition' remastering by original producer Thomas Dolby).

Happy *sigh* and happy *sigh* again.

For the most part these are not 'unplugged' busking or 'solo live' versions of the originals, and I intend that as a recommendation because I don't know about you, but I always find that sort of thing a bit of a yawn...There's no puritanical refusal to overdub from Paddy, and though the only instrument is his guitar (and it is lovely) many of the new arrangements are almost as multi-layered as the originals and all of the songs are re-invented, sometimes very radically ('Desire As'). PLUS McAloon's voice is excellent - warm and strong and dark and sounding if anything better than it did 22 years ago.

Is Steve McQueen a Record Of Your Life, the 'Pet Sounds' of your 80s? Then I really can't recommend this enough.

Now please can we have a remaster of Swoon with a comparable 2nd disc treat?

Paddy McAloon - 'Bonny' (acoustic version) (2006)
Paddy McAloon - 'Faron Young' (acoustic version) (2006)

Teenage Dream

It's thirty years to the day since Marc Bolan died in a car crash on Queen's Ride, Barnes - just a mile from our house (as it was a mile from his).

I cycled over there this afternoon and joined thirty or forty people milling about in the dappled light beneath the trees by the road, reading the messages, taking each other's pictures in front of the memorial, breathing in the incense someone had lit. A few looked like original rock survivors, and maybe they were even old friends; a few others, like the girls in the pic, were young enough to be their kids.

It was all very civilized and not especially solemn; downbeat but sincere. Someone had brought camping chairs. How very British.

I saw no feather boas except the one on Marc's plinth...

RIP Master Feld.

T.Rex - 'Cosmic Dancer' (1971)

Dance Friday...Internationalists!

I've just got back from Birmingham (West Midlands, not Alabama). Actually, not Birmingham but somewhere indeterminate east of the M42. I stopped in a Co-Op in a small village to buy a fruit juice and they had a grocery section headed 'International Cuisine' - it had Sharwoods noodles, Uncle Ben's rice and some jars of curry sauce in it. Hey! Let no-one tell you there is no cosmopolitan living to be had in the 'Heart Of England' !

Anyway, look....since I've spent most of the day schlepping up and down the motorway I haven't had time to come up with a load of flannel (er sorry, 'research') about this Friday's Dance Post and I don't have any kind of even semi-amusing anecdote to relate in connection with this track either so I'll just say that a) Joe Smooth was one of the original pioneers of Chicago house music and b) I absolutely bloody well love this and so should you.

And as there have been references to Paul Weller in the two posts prior to this, I will not even mention The Style Council here.

Now then, set the volume control to 'high' and prepare to be uplifted my friends. It's Friday and mine's a large one (fnaar fnaar).

Joe Smooth - 'Promised Land' (original 12" mix) (1988)

Tired Of Doing Day Jobs?

Seems to me the 'ex-Mods who were sick of prog' epithet for pub-rockers - coined, I think, by a member of the Feelgoods - fitted Eddie & The Hot Rods better than anyone.

They might have found themselves (not unluckily) lumped in with punkers and new wavers in the crazy musical explosion post-77 but it's the amphetamine rush of early Who and Small Faces I hear most in their music now, and there's no doubting their influence in turn (along with The Jam's, natch) on the mod revivalists circa '79.

Legacy and short-lived commercial lift aside though, punk (and numerous band personnel changes) pretty much did for The Rods as a unit, though two members ended up joining The Damned (!) and their manager Ed Hollis (brother of TalkTalk's Mark, fact fans) worked with that band, SLF and Elvis Costello for a time.

A version of the Hot Rods reformed in the early noughties and is still touring proving, as I think we all know, that you can't keep a good Essex rocker down.

Cushty.

Eddie & The Hot Rods - 'Do Anything You Wanna Do' (1977)

.

[Hot Rods compiled here]

Everybody Needs A Shot Of R'n'B

Given that we've gone all Balearic over at Barefoot, what better and more contrasting a way to start the week here at The Ghost than with a serious shot of no holds barred Essex rhythm and blues....

Stone me but these lads were 'tight' (even without Wilko Johnson on guitar).

Dr Feelgood - 'Down At The Doctors' (1978) [from this]

Meanwhile for evidence, should you need it, that the young Paul Weller based his entire early look & moves on Wilko, have a look at this (recorded in 1975!).

[With thanks to Dr. Al]

New Baby

I have a new baby in Wordpress, but like the beautiful little thing in the picture, it's not properly formed yet and will need time to grow strong....

I'm very excited about it.

Hope you will be too...

Dance Friday...

...in which legendary dance producer remixes r&b diva's MOR ballad (from pen of Diane 'How Do I Live?' Warren no less) into a deep-house anthem that is at turns dark, brooding and sparklingly uplifting.

A mate and I boogied to this once at a Las Vegas nite club (oh, the glamour!) after having imbibed a fair quantity of Mr J.Daniels' excellent bourbon on ice.

We were delighted, and frankly more than a little surprised, when our terpsichoric excellence clearly attracted the attention of two lithesome young ladies, whose dancefloor moves towards, before and around us could only be described as 'provocative'.

It was a whole three rounds of drinks later that we discovered the young ladies, far from having been seduced by our rug-cutting fluidity and ineffable Brit charisma, were in the employ of the establishment and charged with encouraging poor saps like us to spend more bucks on expensive booze at the bar.

'Do the hustle' indeed. *sigh*

They sure could dance though...

Toni Braxton - 'Un-Break My Heart' (Frankie Knuckles Franktidrama club mix) (1996)

[actually quite rare, though apparently being sold here for 77p! I've got it in Spanish too if anyone's interested. No, thought not].

In Between Days

It's not summer; it's not winter. The holidays are over and it's a long time till the next ones.

It's midweek. I'm (whisper it) middle aged.

I'm waiting at the station for the train of inspiration, but it's late...

Last night the iPo shuffled this at me, and it felt kinda right.

Ben Folds - 'In Between Days' (The Cure cover) (2006).

[from this; pic - the Millennium footbridge and St Paul's Cathedral, London, 6:30pm yesterday].

September Song

"Our fear of death is like our fear that summer will be short, but when we have had our swing of pleasure, our fill of fruit, and our swelter of heat, we say we have had our day"

- John Donne (1620)

David Sylvian - 'September' (1987)

[from this]

English Pastoral (1969)

It's my eldest daughter's 8th birthday today. I am taking the day off and we are heading south out of London into the country to row boats along a small river by an old pub, through green fields.

Have you ever seen a kingfisher, except on the telly?

I've never seen a kingfisher, except on the telly.

But still...

"Very beautiful and wonderful things do happen, don't they. And we live most of our lives in the hope of them" (The Railway Children)

Pink Floyd - 'Grantchester Meadows' (1969)

[from this]

Siren Song

Many Happy Returns Elizabeth Davidson Fraser, 44 today.

Gossamer, rococo, soaring - and that'll just be her birthday cake (arf arf).

Cocteau Twins - 'Garlands' (1983)

Tell me I'm not alone in still loving and playing their thrillingly dark debut?

This Mortal Coil - 'Song To The Siren' (1983)

Ah, bury me to this. At sea.

Elizabeth Fraser & Jeff Buckley - 'All Flowers In Time' (unreleased demo - c.1995)

The worst kept secret on the net - but boy is it good.

Elizabeth Fraser - 'Underwater' (2000)

Ultra-rare 9 minute white-label trance outing. You're welcome.

We are promised new solo Liz stuff soon; wish it would hurry, it's been taking its time...

[Lots more Cocteau Twins rarities for download free at their official site. Buy Garlands here, It'll End In Tears here].

English Pastoral

Some time ago a person I thought unknown posted a comment here recommending I check out Candidate and in particular their album Oxengate. He felt I was sure to like it.

My delight at this recommendation was even greater when I sampled said band and indeed did like them very much. Mind you, I had suspected I might the minute I read their MySpace...

'...Candidate forage for fragments of old folk songs in British hedgerows, and shove them into cleft sticks driven deep into mud effigies of John Cale. Sometimes they fasten broken Hollies albums to the side of Harry Nilsson with chewing gum stolen from Spacemen 3. Sometimes they just sit and watch bees' (!)

and Q magazine's description quoted there that Candidate are

'...just about the best available bridge between lo-fi Americana and the woody thrum of archaic Britfolk'

And so it proved. For Candidate are Fairport-Span for the Hype Machine generation (and listening to them also made me dig out my copy of XTC's superb Skylarking, but that's another story...)

What a marvellous thing this blogging mallarkey is, I mused, for a total stranger to so accurately deduce what I might like from merely feeling the vibes herein!

Er...no. 'Azarat', the commenter in question, turned out to be my brother-in-law, Big Tony.

And I didn't rumble him at all.

Not even when he sent me Oxengate for my birthday.

*sigh* How daft am I?

Still, Big Tony likes his strummy 60s folk, his real beer and his fishpond, so I guess he fits the older end of the Candidate listener demographic quite nicely; and he doesn't have a beard or anything, so we'll let him off this once.

Oxengate is an interesting and often lovely album, minute-long 'field music' interludes and all..

If you've already followed up the Epic45 threads cast by Rob at Landcroft House you might like this lot too.

English Pastoral eh? Revival genre of the noughties!

Candidate - 'Furlough' (2007)

Candidate - 'Swear It Will Snow' (2007)

Candidate - 'Harryhausen' (2007)

[You can buy Oxengate here and the band's official website is here. Thanks Tone. Bastard.].

Dance Friday *NEW SERIES*

Hugely inspired by Emmett's 23rd August post at the always marvellous Art Decade I am today uploading some real old genuine 24 carat gold old-skool house music. For surely this is the sound of Friday night.

And what is better than dancing your harris off to groovy house music than dancing your harris off to groovy house music with a political conscience too?

I'll tell you what - nada!

Ce Ce Rogers - 'Someday' (original 12" mix) (1988)

(Look! Ce Ce Rogers' website! Nice!)

Postscript

A couple of comments to my Into The Blue post centred on 'A Place In The Sun'.

I've only just heard that, sadly, the song's composer Ron Miller died last month aged 74.

Motown's only white 'house' songwriter (pic with Berry Gordy), he also penned 'For Once In My Life' (which became one of the most recorded songs in history) and 'Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday' for Stevie Wonder and wrote the lyrics to Diana Ross's 'Touch Me In The Morning'. In later years he wrote 'I've Never Been To Me' for Motown's white countrypop singer Charlene ('I've been to Nice and the isle of Greece' - ahem) and worked with Celine Dion (!) but we'll forgive him that in the circumstances...

There's a decent obit here.

Stevie Wonder - 'Yester-Me, Yester-You, Yesterday' (1969)

Walking In The Ruins

Have you ever heard a song in your dreams?

I don't mean in the Paul McCartney dreamt 'Yesterday' and thought someone else had already written it sense; I mean that a song you've been listening to in the waking world has ended up playing in the iPod shuffle of your head while you slept?

This did for me while I was on holiday.

A relationship ended mapped out in memories of simple things done and places been; it is the kind of song that haunts you. So I thought I'd let it haunt you too.

From the best break-up album I've heard since Blood On The Tracks. Have a tissue handy.

Land's End at dusk

A day of churches

Her getting her hair cut

A windswept walk to Dunnet Head

Boarding a northbound train at Inverness

A rainy Cley-next-the-Sea

Her swinging on a tyre

Me taking her picture

A station frozen in time

March stars in a Norfolk sky

Her sleeping head on my shoulder

With the bus heading on

And the day-out done

A lighthouse sending its light

Out across Thurso bay at night

To Blakeney Point and back again

Walking in the ruins

Of Binham Priory

Abba on the jukebox at Parr Sands

A two way trip on the Bodinnick ferry

(Robert Wratten)

Trembling Blue Stars - 'ABBA On The Jukebox' (1996)

(Buy. Thanks as ever to Colin for starting me on the journey).

And Speaking Of Which...

...I'm still waiting for that backlash.

Arctic Monkeys- 'Who The Fuck Are Arctic Monkeys?' (2006)

Take It To The Bridge

Actually never mind autumn, I seem to have come back from Lot Valley sun to a London bloody winter.

So it is good news indeed that the new Richard Hawley album came out today and I can wallow, wallow in that rainswept city street romanticism and those warm, warm vocal tones (like Roy Orbison came from Sheffield...).

I guess you can't not have heard of Hawley now given the amount of (welcome and long overdue) press coverage he's had since the Mercury-nominated Coles Corner was released in 2005 and you probably even know a bit of his history too - music under his very skin (Dad worked in the steelworks by day and played session guitar in Sheffield blues clubs by night), almost famous with Britpop nearly-men The Longpigs, a spell with the touring line-up of Pulp - but it really wasn't so long ago that RH was releasing his first solo albums without much attention from anyone at all (of these - and all are excellent - I would recommend Late Night Final in particular).

If you get a chance to see him live you MUST GO - he's superb (I will treasure for a long time the memory of the lights going down at the Shepherd's Bush Empire last May and Hawley opening a sell-out gig there with the title track from Coles Corner, a song I quite genuinely believe to be one of the greatest written in the last ten years by anybody anywhere. And some people were still in the bar!).

Anyroad up, enough of my gassing - you can read lots more about Hawley in this month's Word magazine and many other places, and this meeting with the Arctic Monkeys' Alex Turner I found rather lovely to read as I waited in the car ferry queue two weeks ago too...

To the music.

Lady's Bridge is Hawley's fifth album and the third in a row to be named after a Sheffield landmark. It's his first since the passing of his Dad, from cancer.

Hawley's website notes...

'As a tribute to his dad the album cover features Richard in Sheffield’s answer to The Cavern, the legendary Club 60, on the stage where his father, over 30 years ago, played with blues legends John Lee Hooker and Muddy Walters'

And the man himself explains in the sleevenotes...

"I have crossed Lady's Bridge back and forth many times over the years, mainly to get to Kenny's Records on one side (now long gone sadly) or to the Castle Market on the other, both places provided me with food of different sorts. We all have to cross bridges in our lives and we all have to leave things behind that are hard to let go sometimes, pause though before you cross and watch the ancient river flow, be at peace...for a while...then move on"

Go on. Show that you appreciate hard graft, real talent and genuine passion for music and buy this record now.

Richard Hawley - 'Valentine' (2007)

Richard Hawley - 'Tonight The Streets Are Ours' (2007)

And from Late Night Final....

Richard Hawley - 'Something Is...' (2002)

(Official website here and MySpace here).