Totally Shuffled August 11th extract-Los Campesinos!

(An extract from "Totally Shuffled-A Year of Listening to Music on a Broken iPod". One track out of 366 that I randomly shuffled through in 2012. There's another 365 in the book. A a matter of pure coincidence this is the very track that I wrote about exactly a year ago today ).

  

August 11^th

Los Campesinos!-We Are Beautiful,We Are Doomed-We Are Beautiful,We Are Doomed      

                  

         

Is there ever a point when I’ll stop listening to new music and merely revert back to old favourites? Is there a time when I become too old for anything different and settle for what I know works for me? Will The Fall become the aural equivalent of a pair of comfy slippers and elasticated waisted slacks? I suppose that there may be a time when something new and different happens in music and it will go right over my head. It may mean nothing to me and will just sound like a tuneless racket. (Having said that, tuneless rackets have always appealed to me, so maybe that’s not too bad a thing). 

Maybe I have to start questioning that at being over 50 years old, there is a point when a lifetime of listening to pop music is a bit daft. On the other hand, the alternative is too horrible to actually contemplate. I cannot imagine just looking back with rose-tinted glasses to a mythical musical past when all was perfect and never coming across anything different and new. I have a feeling that even in my dotage, I’ll be persuading my grandchildren that the latest Japanese thrash racket is the way to go. There’s that much music to hear that even after forty years or so, I know that I’ve barely scratched the surface. It wouldn’t be an easy option to wean myself off the pursuit of the new, but in some ways it would give me a chance to catch up. After all, I’ve got at about eighty Miles Davis albums to play at least once and over a hundred Frank Zappa albums that have only have been given the most cursory of airings and time is ticking I guess. I don’t think it’s really going to happen though. I’ll still be looking at the music press in whatever form it’s in, and still be avoiding Radio 1 and 2 like the plague years from now.

If I’d stopped at a sensible age then I would have missed out on Los Capmesinos! and that would have not been a good thing. Initially Los Campesinos! were well and truly slagged off in the music press for being too “twee-core”, and it took the album that this title track is from to kind of turn it around. If a band does get battered in the fashionable press then I always feel that there is something worth looking into. I don’t think that the twee core thing helped, but it was more because that they were from Wales rather than London, that stood against them and that they were erudite and intelligent rather than lumpen and provincial. I have liked all the albums they’ve released and really do think that if they’d originated from some fashionable area of the U.S. then they’d be bigger than they are now. But there’s always time and I predict great things for them. 

(One other thing. There is that cliché about all policemen seeming younger as you get older. Well, although that applies with me, the telling fact is that bands get younger as I get older. I have already reached a stage when they are half my age. In ten years time I may be into bands that are a third of my age and I would be easily old enough to be their grandfather. Blimey).    

Get/read/see "Totally Shuffled" here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

Laura Cantrell/John Peel-an extract from "Totally Shuffled"

Laura Cantrell –Lee Harvey Was A Friend Of Mine-Live at Peel Acres (8 May 2003)

John Peel:  “...the thing is, I’ve been talking an awful lot and, er, putting in extra records and stuff, and er, so we’re slightly running out of time and I know you’ve got to get somewhere…and all  of the band and so on, erm, so perhaps if you’ll do your last number next, is that o.k.?”

Laura Cantrell: “Sure, we’d love to do that.”

John Peel: “O.k., o.k., so you can go and relax or whatever.”

Laura Cantrell: “That would be great. (Pauses).You know John, we were going to do a song for you that, erm, might connect with your past history a little bit...”

John Peel: “You’ll never walk alone?” 

(Sound of laughter)     

Laura Cantrell: “No, since you’re running out of time I won’t go into it too much, it’s called “Lee Harvey Was a Friend of Mine”.

John Peel: ”O.k. o.k…” (fades)

Song starts.

There’ll be plenty in here, both written and implied, about the massive influence that John Peel has had not only on my musical preferences, but also on football, politics, art-a whole myriad of things. For instance, I don’t really think that I would have ever have gone to Glastonbury if I didn’t know that John Peel loved the place. But a great man deserves a considered and carefully thought-out appreciation. At a suitable point I think I will dedicate a days’ worth of writing on Peel. I need to mull it over in advance however to do it justice.

Today, though I will write about Laura Cantrell and this song (and by default), something more about John Peel. It was recorded at Peel’s house (“Peel Acres”) in 2003, later on in his radio career when trips to London to record the show became problematic because of health reasons; he had been diagnosed later in life with diabetes. So this explains the chat before and after the song with Laura Cantrell. It also goes to show Peel’s influence upon me. Without John Peel I would never have heard of Laura Cantrell; and certainly would never begun to appreciate country music or early jazz. I wouldn’t have heard Laura Cantrell’s excellent radio show on WFMU org, “Radio Thrift Shop”. She hasn’t hosted her weekly show regularly for a few years, but it’s all archived on their website ready to listen to at will. She is not only a great singer-I love her voice- but an excellent broadcaster as well. Her style is so laid back that it’s worth listening to for that alone. Sometimes, after a song has finished, you  think that the station has gone off air before she starts chatting. 

Like all skilled broadcasters, (John Peel, Alastair Cooke), she has an ability to sound as if she is speaking directly to you and you alone- just chatting really. Her show usually starts with a sequence of about 20-30 minutes of music before she takes to the mic. Like Peel, she has a genuine love of music, and is so enthusiastic about sharing it. Whether it is old 78 country tunes or pre-war jazz. Interspersed with the music is Laura Cantrell chatting about local things as well (weather, traffic, events etc). Who’d have thought that you’d be able to listen to this music broadcast from New York to Liverpool 4 in the comfort of your front room without boxes and boxes of radio ham equipment?               

However, as I mentioned, Laura Cantrell is a great singer as well- and her relaxed, conversational style as a D.J. comes across when she picks up a song. Any one of her albums are worth hearing; I couldn’t recommend one over another. This track though, is from an early mini album, “The Hello Recordings”, and in this instance she is playing it live. It is, as can be inferred from the title, about Lee Harvey Oswald, and is written from the point-of-view of a fictional 12 year-old from Dallas. This child is full of disbelief, “...he used to take me fishing…they say he shot the President...Lee Harvey was friend of mine.” It is a well -crafted song and like a good short story, is written from an unexpected viewpoint. With her matter-of-fact voice Laura Cantrell carries it off well.

(The link with John Peel is that in 1963 he was working as a D.J. for a local station in Dallas, WRR. On the day off Oswald’s arraignment-and subsequent shooting by Jack Ruby- he worked his way into the hearing on the pretence of being English that he was a reporter for the Liverpool Echo. There is newsreel footage of a very young John Peel as Oswald was led away just before he was shot dead. He also met JFK on a couple of occasions).              

Song ends.

Applause.

John Peel: “Somewhere in this house is the video that has Harvey Oswald and me in the same frame and…who wrote that song?”

Laura Cantrell: “You know, I’m not actually sure who wrote that song, it was done by a guy called Homer Henderson who was a street musician, from, I think, Texas in the 80’s so..”

John Peel: “Well, o.k. Thanks very much for doing it and thanks very much for coming along and I hope that you do this again, it’s been a treat.”

Laura Cantrell: “John, we’ll be here any time you ask us.”

More applause.

John Peel: “Another great night at Peel Acres.”

Laura Cantrell recorded one more session for John Peel at his Christmas show at Peel Acres on 23^rd December 2003. He sadly died on 25 October 2004 whilst on a working trip in Peru.

Get/read Totally Shuffled here:

In the U.K:

 http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B00CJYZ3CA 

or in the U.S.:

http://www.amazon.com/Totally-Shuffled-Listening-Broken-ebook/dp/B00CJYZ3CA

How to put up a tent-extract from "Turn Left at the Womble 2"

Latest working unreleased extract from "Turn Left at the Womble 2". Hot off the press. It is just the draft of the latest book, which for now I'm calling "Womble 2" for the want of a better title. This draft is unedited and unpolished as yet and may well change by the time I get round to finishing and publishing the complete book, but I am really as cack-handed as I describe below.  

How I practised putting my tent up for Glasto 2011.

Anyway, I decided I couldn’t leave having the practice run any longer, so one night after work I summoned up the courage to give it a go. Now for ease we’d got one of these new-fangled pop- up tents, which in theory, should be able to be erected with simply a deft flick of the wrist. I was a bit sceptical about this. Surely this was the camping version of the old “whip-the-tablecloth-off-whilst-leaving- the-bone china-in-place” trick. It would all end in tears. Always ready for a good laugh, the whole family gathered around while I studied the instruction booklet intently. It did seem fairly simple and because it was only a two-man tent, I decided not to mess around with putting it up outside. The front room would do. It was a flat circular affair when packed-like a big nylon pancake. I undid the packaging, and to my utter surprise, it seemed to leap out of my fingers of its own volition and jump into the middle of the floor, all set up. “And you all doubted me”, I said, somewhat triumphantly. “I knew exactly what I was doing”. Amy looked at me, over her cup of tea. “Ah, you’ve just got to get it all back in place now. That should be easy as well.” Sarcasm is not a very likeable trait in one so young.

We all looked at the tent in its glory and the unanswered question was how on earth was I going to be able to return it to the basic 2 dimensional pancake shape without something breaking? There was a pause whilst I said I needed to study the instruction booklet-a fancy name for a slip of paper with instructions that made no sense at all. Everybody knew that it would be a miracle if I managed to get it back the way it was supposed to be. There was a longer pause whilst I very kindly offered to make everyone a brew. This was not done with any altruistic intentions really; it was simply a way of buying myself a bit more time in the hope that either a) everyone would get bored and wander off or b) they’d all nag my father-in -law, who, being much more practical than I am, to put it away in my absence. Unfortunately, neither of these two things happened. I walked back into the front room with everyone’s drink to find them all perched on the edge of the sofa, craning their necks over the top and side of the tent so they could still watch the TV and acting as if was the most usual thing in the world. The only things that was said were, “Do you know what to do now?” followed up by, “You’re going to have to do this all by yourself at Glastonbury, so we’re not going to help.” (This sounds a bit unreasonable in print, but I think that it was said with the best of intentions at the time).

The difficulty I had was that as the whole thing shot up by seemingly by magic and without any assistance on my part in seconds, all logic and reason about simply reversing the process was irrelevant. The instruction booklet seemed written in a way to personally baffle me-as if it was written specifically with someone as cack-handed as myself in mind. It had a sneering tone, with liberal use of the word “simply” and line-drawn illustrations that made as much sense if I looked at them upside down and in a mirror than the right way up. I wouldn’t have been wholly surprised if it had started with, “Dear Rick Leach, Thank you for buying your tent from us. Here are the instructions showing you how to put your tent back together. These have been written in a way a 5 year old could do it. With one hand tied behind their back. However, you don’t stand a chance you thick bastard. Why don’t you just throw it away and hire a camper van? Yours sincerely etc”.

It worried me a bit when the booklet talked about “bend pole A over pole B” with guidance of “crossing hands over” and “take care not to force the poles”. I could see it ending up with many tears and shards of fibreglass scattered around the room. Everyone one else was, in reality, looking forward to a right old laugh and being able to recount hilarious tales, many years hence, of the time I had to be taken to hospital with a self-inflicted injury involving yards of cheap nylon and tent poles. I looked out of the corner of my eye. Amy’s fingers were hovering suspiciously over the 9 button on the phone and everyone seemed to have lost complete interest in the latest goings on in Coronation Street.  There was no way round it. I was going to have to grab the metaphorical nettle and the literal tent and just have a go. According to the booklet, it all could be (and had to be) done in one manoeuvre. There was no room for pussyfooting around. “Right,” I said, “Stand well back, here I go.” There was a dramatic pause and everyone held their breath (or stifled their giggles; not exactly sure which) as I grabbed both sides of the tent, twisted my arms and wrists in a style destined to cause something to dislocate in my lower back, and somehow managed to return the tent to the flat semi-circular shape in one fell swoop. I really don’t know how I managed to do it; it was more by accident than design. Without waiting for the collective round of applause that was surely warranted, I whipped it back into the cover and triumphantly zipped it up. I bowed to everyone and was ready to give my speech. I could sense a slight air of disappointment that it all had gone so well. “Bet you wouldn’t be able to do it again,” said Amy. Although I was tempted to rise to the challenge, I thought that once was enough.

Next time I’d be doing this would be in a field in Somerset, surrounded by people for whom putting up a tent is the most natural thing in the world.    

You can get/read "Turn Left at the Womble 1" here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0060YCKGW

 

the flaming lips at glastonbury-extract from "Turn Left at The Womble"

 Brief snippet from "Turn Left At The Womble" about The Flaming Lips at Glastonbury in 2010...

 

…then all the lights went down…

A deep, pulsating, throbbing noise emerged through the speakers, gradually getting louder and louder. From the backdrop at the back of the stage out squeezed firstly Kilph Scurlock, then Steven D, Michael Ivins and finally Wayne Coyne to a massive cheer from the crowd. I couldn’t at first place what they were playing-was it something from Dark Side of the Moon? It sounded a bit like it; with that chiming instrumental, but it slowly dawned on me that it was a track from Embryonic. A big transparent balloon was being inflated on the stage and before too long Wayne Coyne was clambering inside and being rolled over the heads of the crowd. At the same time the music was carrying on getting louder and more frenetic and dozens of coloured balloons were shooting out from the stage into the crowd. On the screens I could see Wayne Coyne bouncing inside the balloon, grinning wildly and being carried by everyone’s hands, at first deeper and deeper into the centre of the crowd and then back towards the stage. This was simply amazing and I could sense that it would be a magical night. There was, already, a genuine sense of happiness in the air. The mad jam of music carried on swirling until the balloon reached the stage and Wayne emerged out of it, bounding back on and picking up a megaphone/bullhorn mike thing. They then launched into Worm Mountain whilst he exhorted the crowd to “come on motherfuckers, come on!!!” and firing multi-coloured streamers over everyone’s heads from a sort of adapted water super-soaker type gun thing again and again, falling gently like ribbons in the night sky. Even more primary coloured balloons were thrown from the stage into the audience; orange, blue, white, red, yellow. Bouncing from hand to hand, syncing with the bouncing music, it was a magical spectacle.

Read more about that magical night & more about Glasto 2010 here:

http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B0060YCKGW