Blog Magog


<$BlogRSDURL$>

30.5.04

I am disgusted with "EastEnders". How dare they use the word "Muppet" as a derogatory term. I'd rather see Albert Square populated with Jim Henson creations than these ludicrous cockney stereotypes. There are few things finer in this world than the Muppets. "EastEnders" or "The Muppet Show"? There is simply no contest.

By the way, I am completely serious.




18.5.04

From the edge of the world, to your town... 

Today is 18th May. Today, it is 24 years since Ian Curtis died, at the age of 24. Spare a thought for him today. Think about what his music means to you still. Play a Joy Division record if you can.

Anyway... hi folks. I am about to bore you with an elongated and reverential celebration of my preparations for the upcoming live thing. Switch off now unless you need help sleeping.

It may be presumed that while many rock bands have their little rituals for playing live, we have never been one of those bands. Nothing could be further from the truth. I've just spent three hours checking my gig bag, because I know that however well stocked it was when I put it away after the last show, I will invariably find things missing when I take it out again. To my astonishment, and partial delight, I discovered that my Grover Allman guitar picks, of which I bought twenty last time out, and used about four, have vanished. I have used Grover Allman guitar picks for over fifteen years. And although, for all of that time I have known that when you've seen one guitar pick you've pretty much seen them all, this alone will justify a mission to Tin Pan Alley in Denmark Street tomorrow. While I am there I will purchase new guitar leads for myself and for Carl. We've talked many times about the strange law of the lead. You buy a new one every time. It works right up until the soundcheck for the first show. Then it dies. If you don't have the lead you've been carrying since you were seventeen, the one lead that still works, you're going to have to find a guitar shop in the vicinity of the gig that's still open, hope they've got a lead that works, pay twenty quid for it even though you know Studiospares sell the same one for a fiver, and still not find out if it's going to work until you walk out on stage. We've learned. Always buy a new lead. It's so important to have one that's allowed to knacker at the eleventh hour. Never bring out old faithful until you're back is against the wall. He'll never let you down.

Out comes Mr. Sheen. He's never even seen my furniture. He exists entirely to service my Fender Telecaster, and occasionally the acoustic. All hail, Leo Fender. Once you've met Leo and taken one of his finest into combat, never again will you trust your sonic self to a clunky old Les. Carl, to his credit, never went through a Gibson phase. He always realised that while a Les Paul was like a trusty Han Solo blaster, a Fender is like a lightsabre, graceful and wise, a precise weapon with a more civilised aim. When I chose the Tele, I chose wisely. Scratchy and harmonic, with a lightness of touch, it delivers not thunder, but a majestic, ethereal chime. I bought it because it was cheap and I liked the colour (black and white), and because my old Angelhead Les was tired and complained a lot. In fact I actually bought a new Les Paul before it, but it never delivered. But when I plugged in the Tele and heard it soar, I fell in deep, passionate love with it. Maple wood neck, action like cotton wool, this is now the only one for me. How it got the stains I do not know, but I took Mr. Sheen to it, and now it sits here glistening like Excalibur, waiting to be called on to fight for truth and justice. I have fitted it with a fresh new set of Rotosound Pinks, the strings of kings, which I discovered to my delight you can still buy if you know where to look (Strings2Go.com). But it needs a new strap. The old brown Ernie Ball one doesn't really become it. Another reason to visit Denmark Street.

To the acoustic. I must sing also the praises of the John Hornby Skewes company. The Encore Dreadnought is a fine instrument. I have taken the Pepsi challenge with many others. The Gibson AJ10, and the Art & Lutherie Cedar models I like, but for the money and the bashing I know it's going to have to take, I'll stick with the Encore. It performed great on the album, and when I bought a nice new Behringer Shark preamp for its groovy little Belcat pickup, it stopped feeding back. I stood in front of a PA speaker with it at Islington Arts Factory. Not a wail, not even a low hum. Robin liked the Behringer so much he christened it the "Tricorder". Alas, the only concession to expense you need with this guitar is absolute top-of-the-range strings. Elixirs, to be precise, £17 a set. Luckily for me, Holly has an endorsement deal with Elixir. I got three sets for free, and the first one has been on for almost a year and still sounds like new. The Elixir picks are good too. As playing the acoustic live with the band is an altogether new development, I have yet to ritualise the preparations in quite the same fashion, so I may buy some picks for it, or I may not. After all, this is crazy and impulsive stuff. This is rock and/or roll.

The gallery wasn't open today, so I am yet to retrieve the Bad Dog. In case you were on the edge of your seat with anticipation and wonderment. Tomorrow I will buy a travelcard and take care of business.

Earlier today I emailed a friend to say I was less than enthused at the prospect of a return to the stage. It wasn't the stage itself that was the problem, it never is. The stage is safe. The stage is my place. The problem was the business, the heinous business of talking the band up to promoters who we wouldn't piss on if they were on fire. But that's all gone now. The ritual of preparation has eradicated any misgivings. The fever is on me, and I am ready to play.

Morrissey's appearance on that nauseating Jonathan Ross' show settled my mind about one thing. He talked about how he never performs, about how, when he is on stage, he is just himself. I understand that perspective completely. It has never been about costume or poise for me. Never. From the very beginning I felt that the one place I was truly and uncompromisingly free to be myself was on stage. The idea of donning a mask, of perpetuating a self-myth in order to work a room is beyond me. Others do it so well anyway. Lights and smoke, it's all a bit of fun, but turn on the house lights and it's all the same to me. The only thing I detest is coming off. In the old days they had to pull the plug to shut me up. I always wanted to play until the audience themselves begged me to stop. Short, sharp sets are not for me. I can't take you on my journey in a mere twenty five minutes. Alas, we'll have to see what we get, but the day will come when you'll all be at the gigs in your pyjamas. And we will too. I'm looking forward to it.

From the edge of the world, to your town.





12.5.04

Love's great 

Like a lot of people, I am periodically capable of forgetting what a seminal album Love was when it first came out. The Cult would go on to lesser things all too quickly, becoming a bad parody of seventies rock cliches. But before they allowed themselves to fall foul of regurgitation, and after they had managed to break from their dodgy goth origins, they were, albeit briefly, a fucking great rock band. The first album, Dreamtime, caught some of this promise, but was slightly too mired in the times, a little too self-consciously alternative. But with the second album, in 1985, The Cult really did create something wonderful. Almost two decades on, it still sounds fantastic, undated, and utterly convincing. Steve Brown's simple but effective production, Jamie Stewart's throbbing, funky bass lines, some wonderfully subtle and atmospheric guitars from Billy Duffy that still manage to seriously rock when required, and Ian Astbury at his least pretentious, all serve up the goods for the duration. At the time Nigel Preston's departure after "She Sells Sanctuary" seemed like a terrible loss (and so it would later prove when the mediocre Les Warner was drafted in), but in fact the drumming of Mark Brzezicki (on loan from Big Country) now seems perfect; simpler and more direct than Preston's, but just what the album needed to clarify the departure from the Dreamtime sound. Preston (who died from an overdose sometime later) did still play on "She Sells Sanctuary", a phenomenal drumming performance on a now bonafide classic, and we must be thankful that he did, as it is the one track on the record that really required his staggering, much-missed abilities.

Let's forget about The Cult's later mistakes, crimes and outright atrocities, and remember that, if you were 13 in 1985, Love was the coolest album in the world. If you were too young for The Smiths, too existential for The Cure, while Echo and the Bunnymen were on their post-Ocean Rain hiatus, The Cult were wild and dark and loud, and really at the top of their game. Love was a rock'n'roll record, coloured by cool indie guitar riffs and real attitude, at a time when pop ruled, thus such things were woefully rare. Great sleeve too, with hieroglyphics and everything. I had the embossed one, and to this day I've never seen another, so nerr... These are the things that make us vinyl junkies. Love is a great album. Existentially. It just is.

Dreamtime is also still worthy of investigation, for the drumming at very least.





8.5.04

Peter Ackroyd's London 



All hail, Peter Ackroyd.

When my father gave me a copy of London: The Biography for Christmas a few years ago, I had no idea that I would identify so strongly with Ackroyd's vision and emotional bond with the city. I was deeply moved, inspired, reanimated by Ackroyd's enthusiasm, as well as the sheer beauty of his writing. Last night I watched the first episode of his BBC documentary series based on the book, and was again moved, almost to tears. Once you engage with the history of the city, you become part of something that simply has no ending. You can never know enough to be intellectually sated, because you realise that there is always so much more. Your journey through the life of the city becomes a deeply personal one. You begin to respond emotionally. You become gloriously haunted, hearing the footsteps of a hundred generations of greatness on every street. Time becomes abstract, and every stone comes to life. You finally begin to understand why it is that you never want to leave London.

Peter Ackroyd himself is possibly the greatest living Englishman. Don't you just want to make him a cup of tea and give him a big hug? If you are a Londoner and don't know his work, I beg you to discover it. Watch the documentary, read the book, then read his Dickens and his Blake and his barking mad Hawksmoor. Then read Virginia Woolf, listen to Handel, and the Sex Pistols.

Peter Ackroyd's London: BBC2, Friday 9pm




6.5.04

Charleston 



Here I am in sunny Sussex. Back to the smoke tonight.

Yesterday I returned to Charleston for the first time since last summer, when I was writing many of the lyrics for the album. I listened to "Still Life" whilst sitting in the exact spot where I had first written it. I am satisfied. Very.

The mystery of the small cardboard box in the dining room hasn't been solved. It's just there, on the mantlepeice amongst the finery from the Omega Rooms and everywhere. A small box, worthless in any other context, possibly an old-fashioned cigarette packet, which, for some reason, Vanessa Bell took her brush to and intricately decorated. I like to think it was just one of the many empty cigarette packets that Virginia Woolf probably discarded in the house.

Speaking of Aunt Ginnie, the newly discovered late portrait of her by Vanessa is now hanging in the Garden Room, and it is glorious!

In the studio next to Vanessa's bedroom I noticed a old photograph of Angelica Bell, who, in her prime, it transpires, was scandalously beautiful. No wonder Bunny Garnett fell for her. Angelica still lives, the last survivng of the two great generations of Bloomsbury, and now the head greatest of the Bloomsbury families. Daughter of Bell, niece of Woolf. Her sister-in-law, Olivier Bell (widow of Quentin), also still lives, but a few miles from Charleston.

Whenever I am at Charleston I want to be in every nook and cranny, which is impossible. Clearly I need to spend much more time there. I love Charleston. The coffee sponge cake is delicious. Everything about the place is genius, but quiet, unassuming, reflective genius. The art of both the interior and exterior, indeed of all the garden and extended grounds, is one of perfect equilibrium between creativity and nature. I could believe that the "Levitating Lady" grew out of the ground along with the apple trees.

The Jarman exhibits were wonderful, but very hard on me personally. Derek Jarman, I still believe, will one day be appreciated on a par with Cezanne and Matisse. And that will still be less than he deserves.




3.5.04

I got an email from Sara Worth in Aldershot (I seem to recall EJ was born there...) asking me what my ten favourite albums are. After much deliberation, I am happy to report that the following list probably represents those records which, while subject to change like the weather, are the most regular recipients of my attention, even after all these years...

1. Melanie - Candles in the Rain
2. Maria McKee - Life is Sweet
3. Patti Smith - Wave
4. Echo & the Bunnymen - Ocean Rain
5. Talk Talk - Spirit of Eden
6. X - Under the Big Black Sun
7. The Smiths - Hatful of Hollow
8. The Sound - From the Lion's Mouth
9. Public Image Limited - First Issue
10. It's a tie: either Joy Division - Closer OR Curve - Cuckoo OR Ramones - Rocket to Russia OR Television - Marquee Moon...

...Hang on, TEN really isn't fair. 100 would even be a push... in fact I can't even bear to think about it...

For instance, I have this day been listening to Johnny Cash, Throwing Muses and Dave Devant & His Spirit Wife, none of which have made the above list, but all of which you should be as in awe of as I am...




2.5.04

Clouds Unfolded... 

Spent the last two days working on the spoken word album. It's there really, I just need to decide how to present it as a work in it's own right. The title, CLOUDS UNFOLDED is, of course, from Blake and is therefore NOT of the Metaphysical era, but the Romantic. My reasons for choosing this title are several-fold. Firstly, Blake's influence on art and on myself personally is undeniable. Secondly, the Blake line "Bring me my spear! O clouds unfold!" is from the poem widely known as "Jerusalem", yet is was never called this until it was co-opted as a Christian hymn, being in fact the preface to Blake's "Milton" (Blake DID write a poem called "Jerusalem", but this isn't it). Milton himself was the contemporary of the Metaphysical poets, indeed Andrew Marvell worked as his assistant for some time. Blake's poem is a rage against the establishment, a call for a rebellion against art as a commodity, and a vision of an artistic and creative utopia. It is ferociously passionate, and violently opposed to the non-emotive, inexpressive works of mere journeymen. This uncontainable self-expression and creative freedom began with the Metaphysical poets (to some extent incorporating Shakespeare and Milton, both of the era), that's why Milton is Blake's subject when he writes on this.

In the project I have tried to make a selection of poems that I believe best reflect the intentions of the movement, and also it's daring. Everyone knows John Donne's "For Whom the Bell Tolls", but comparatively few will know his seminal erotic poem "To His Mistris Going to Bed". Yet both poems are key to understanding the movement. Throughout history the great motivators have been love and death. The Metaphysical poets were the first to seize on this as an artistic validation: life is short, therefore communication is urgent.

Making the record was cool, but very hard work, I don't know if I'd do it again. Hopefully you won't have any idea how tough it was! I can say is that it takes just thirty minutes out of your life to listen to it, they are great poems, you don't have to do any work, so how can you lose?





This page is powered by Blogger. Isn't yours?