Rewinding to Get High

After work one evening in 1997, I clambered into a friend's car and together we drove 50-odd miles to see Swedish band The Soundtrack of Our Lives play a show in a small Essex pub, on what I presume was their first UK tour. I'd blagged the tickets from a record company rep. He had one pair to give away and no-one else working in any of the record shops in the whole of East Anglia had shown the slightest interest in the band, but from the moment I'd heard their debut single, 'Instant Repeater '99' the previous year, I was smitten. I'd pursued the free tickets, concerned that the gig might've already sold out, so convinced was I of the band's greatness. I needn't have worried. To this day it's still the least populated concert I've ever attended. If there were any paying customers at all, the number definitely didn't stretch to double figures. To their credit though, The Soundtrack of Our Lives played as if they their very, ...ahem..., lives depended on it. They were bloody magnificent.

Several years ago I sketched out an idea for a Desert Island Discs series for this blog, but, like so many other things, I never got around to completing it. 'Instant Repeater '99' was high in the running order for that series and it remains my absolute favourite song of the 1990s, by any artist.

(Fun fact: There were two bands supporting The Soundtrack of Our Lives that evening. In the middle were a local combo whose name has been lost in the mists of time. First on were a bunch of youngsters who'd travelled a very long way to play in front of the proverbial one man and his dog, but they too threw themselves into their set all guns blazing. It was Idlewild.)

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Instant Repeater '99

Busy Land

Gregorio Vardanega’s Disc and Spherical Construction, Kettle's Yard, Cambridge.

Many thanks to everyone who left birthday greetings for Mrs S last week. We had a fine old time in Cambridge, in spite of the draining 30+° heat. Memo to self though - next time spend a little more money and get a hotel with air-conditioning. As it was, it felt a bit like trying to sleep in a cardboard box stored inside a greenhouse. This week we're back in full-on work mode, then on Saturday I'll be up at the crack of dawn to travel down to London for a precious few days catch-up with the visiting American contingent of the family. Unfortunately Mrs S can't join me on this jaunt as she'll be busy prepping for a forthcoming four day artistic endeavour which commences next Thursday, I'll be returning from London on Wednesday to accompany and assist her. Long story short, my profile round these parts will be even lower than usual for the next couple of weeks. I'll try to schedule another interim post if I get a moment, but if it all goes a bit quiet for a while, you'll know why.

Here's The Soundtrack of Our Lives in 2012 with a corking approximation of the kind of noise Pete, Roger, John & Keith were making circa 1966. 

The Soundtrack of Our Lives - Busy Land

When We Fall

Remarkably, I didn't actually break any bones when I was a child, but did seem to be particularly accident prone and consequently became something of a regular visitor to the Whipps Cross Out Patients department, for treatment to all manner of cuts, grazes and gashes - even a dislocated knee-cap (see photo). I still bear various scars on my head, chin and legs to confirm the point. So I fell over a lot, but, like most kids, for the majority of the time at least, I bounced straight back up again. Even at that age though, I was aware of the distinction between me 'falling over' and an older relative 'having a fall'. In contrast to the bumps and bruises I gathered in falling over, I knew that if, for instance, Nan had a fall, it was potentially a much more serious affair.

I would occasionally overhear Mum discussing the worries of an elderly relative's fall in hushed tones with my Aunt, whose family shared our house for the first 12 years of my life. Last Wednesday that Aunt, at 85 now an elderly relative herself, had a fall, slipping on a step in the rain and going down flat on her left side, briefly knocking herself unconscious. Her daughter, my Cousin, now living with her own young family in New York was understandably panic stricken at the news. I quickly ventured down to London in order to assess my Aunt's injuries. Mercifully, in spite of looking as though she's been in a punch-up, her only major injury is a broken wrist - a painful inconvenience for sure, but we're relieved that it wasn't much worse.

Re-winding to Get High