Friday Photo #15

Many of my early family photos were taken in one of two places - by the lean-to in the back garden or on the front doorstep. These were the two closest points to being indoors, while actually being outside the house and using available daylight - each flashbulb cost money in those days and was usable only once. Consequently both these locations may turn up with some regularity as this series progresses. Here's one from the doorstep, taken in 1965. I don't know what Dad said that was so funny, but he certainly captured my reaction to perfection.

Here's an appropriately titled tune from 'Free Dirt', the 1986 debut LP by Died Pretty. The Australian band were responsible for one of my absolute favourite songs of the 1980s, which I shared here a while back. Go check it out if you haven't already.

Died Pretty - Laughing Boy

Monday Long Song

On Friday evening, I did something that in years gone by I would regularly do three or four times per week. Now, doing it just the once was completely exhausting. Where did I ever find the energy back in the day? I'm talking, in case there's any confusion, about making a 150 mile round trip to see a gig. The mighty Kungens Män paid a brief return visit to these shores last week, something I knew that I couldn't miss out on, even though it arrived in the middle of a run of early shifts at work. The band were every bit as dynamic, intense and far-out as the first time I caught them in December 2019, back when the world was a very different place indeed. After that first gig a couple of years ago, I had only a quick chat with the band after their set, so it came as a bit of a surprise at the conclusion this latest show when guitarist Mikael Tuominen came up and greeted me by name. Mikael plays in four bands; Kungens Män, Fanatism, Automatism and Eye Make The Horizon, all of whom are well represented in my record collection, as well as working on his own project Solitär. He also, along with fellow Kungens Män members, has a full time job back in Sweden. He's a busy guy, yet he not only took the time to stop and talk, but remembered my name from that one short meeting two years ago, remarkable.

Kungens Män - Ljupt Djud

Friday Photo #14

For my 60th birthday in April 2020, I was scheduled to make a long overdue return visit to New York City, the flight a present from my cousin who lives in Lower Manhattan. The trip, the celebration and the family reunion didn't happen of course, instead I spent my big day filling shelves at work. It turned out to be a pretty good day in the end though. A bunch of work colleagues bought me a cake plus several bottles of beer, so I went home quite happy. With travel restrictions still in place, earlier this year my 61st birthday came and went and the credit note for the flight is still sitting in a folder on my laptop. I've tentatively started to make plans for April 2022, we'll see how things pan out. 

Of more urgent concern however, is the fact that my cousin has been unable to visit her mum in London for nearly two years. Although she has an American husband, three duel nationality kids and has lived and worked in New York for nearly 40 years, my cousin has never taken American citizenship, so international travel at any stage of the lockdown was out of the question. Travel rules finally ease on November 1st and the following weekend she's flying into London for a very brief visit with her mum. I'm hoping to get down there to be a part of the family catch-up as well, even it's for only 24 hours.

One morning, during one of our trips to visit my cousin in the mid-noughties, Mrs S & I set out on a roughly 5 mile walk from the apartment in Tribeca, across the Brooklyn Bridge, through Brooklyn Heights, Cobble Hill and Carroll Gardens until we eventually reached Red Hook - in those days fairly inaccessible by public transport. We picked up a couple of pieces of Key Lime Pie, from Steve's, a place that had been highly recommended, before wandering into the nearby Louis Valentino Jr Park, which offers impressive views across the bay to Liberty Island and Jersey beyond. I had a fairly basic point and press camera at the time and fired off a couple of shots, one of which is at the top of this post (click on it to enlarge). In spite of the distant grainy quality, it's a photo I've always been pleased with - the anonymous ferry on the way into Manhattan, the Staten Island Ferry on the way out and Liberty between them. 

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Today's tune comes from 1972. While most of the kids at school were grooving to the Chinnichap glam of 'Wig Wam Bam' by The Sweet, me and my mates (and, no doubt, a certain Master John Medd) flipped over the 45 to dig into the heavy, self-written b-side 'New York Connection', featuring a rare example of a solo Brian Connolly vocal, devoid of the usual harmonies from Mick Tucker, Steve Priest & Andy Scott.

The Sweet - New York Connection

Monday Long Song

Following on from last week Yes post, we stay in 1974 for 'You', the third of Gong's 'Radio Gnome Invisible' trilogy of albums. Soon after its release, founding member and leader Daevid Allen departed from the band, closely followed by guitarist Steve Hillage, whose own 1975 debut solo LP 'Fish Rising' featured heavy contributions from many core Gong members, with the notable exception of Allen.

'A Sprinkling of Clouds', which closes side one of 'You', features Tim Blake's moog prowess to the fore. Blake is still actively participating in a number of musical projects including the current incarnation of Hawkwind, for whom I saw him rockin' a mean theremin just a couple of years ago.

Gong - A Sprinkling of Clouds

Monday Long Song

Two years ago, almost to the day funnily enough, I shared a track by Refugee as a part of this very series (here) and was pleasantly surprised to receive a reasonable amount of positive feedback for what was an 18 minute, typically complex 1970's prog work-out. I mentioned in the post how keyboard wiz Patrick Moraz was whisked away to the big league in 1974, when he was poached by Yes following Rick Wakeman's departure from the band at the conclusion of the 'Tales From Topographic Oceans' tour. Moraz made just the one LP, 'Relayer', with Yes, before Wakeman rejoined the fold in 1976. 

In spite of its one-off nature, 'Relayer' holds a place of special affection in the hearts of many long-term Yes fans. All three tracks on the LP qualify for the Monday Long Song feature, though I've spared you the glorious 21 minute epic, 'Gates of Delirium', opting instead for the first piece worked up by the band after Moraz's arrival, 'Sound Chaser'.

Yes - Sound Chaser

Friday Photo #13

Robyn Hitchcock on stage at the Ipswich Transport Museum

Over the past 18 months I've tuned in to over half of Robyn Hitchcock & Emma Swift's twice weekly Sweet Home Quarantine live streamed shows - that's about 90 hours of music all told. Us regulars in the audience have become collectively known as The Groovers to Robyn, Emma and each other - a band of brothers, sisters, friends and strangers, spread around the four corners of the Earth, tuning in to forget about our problems for an hour or so, be they personal, political, local or global. While the outside world was steadily going to hell in an ongoing series of handcarts, on Sweet Home Quarantine nothing was off limits - Soft Boys classics, back catalogue gems, deep obscurities, newly penned songs and cover versions galore were joyfully delivered from their laptop to ours, all interspersed with warm conversation and regular appearances from adorable Scottish Folds, Ringo and Tubby. And apparently the show will go on. Even as we tentatively tiptoe back towards some form of 'normality', Robyn and Emma have expressed a desire to maintain the community and continue to broadcast Sweet Home Quarantine shows into the future, as and when real life commitments allow. 

The real life commitment currently causing a hiatus in Sweet Home Quarantine shows is Robyn's much delayed UK tour. Last Saturday I was at the Ipswich Transport Museum to witness him play a wonderful set on a stage laid out between a tram and a trolley-bus. One of Robyn's life long passions is ancient, redundant modes of  public transportation, as can be witnessed in the lyrics of several of his songs and he seemed genuinely overwhelmed by his surroundings, claiming it to be the most perfect venue he'd played in 45 years on the road. The setlist reflected the transportation vibe - 'Fifty Two Stations', 'I Often Dream of Trains' and a really beautiful 'Trams of Old London' were all given outings. Most poignant of the lot though was 'Raymond and the Wires', the story of a 1964 trolley-bus trip young Master Hitchcock took with his father (the author Raymond Hitchcock). Robyn sang the opening line '...my eyes have seen the trolley-bus...' and paused, gently strumming his guitar as he looked left and right at the ancient vehicles all around him - an emotional moment at the beginning of a particularly personal song.

Robyn Hitchcock - Raymond and the Wires 

Friday Photo #12

I have no idea how my parents persuaded me to sit on this little horse, let alone ride it, so timid was I at three years of age. I appear to be having fun nevertheless. The year is 1963. The venue? Possibly London Zoo, but that's just a guess. How cool is the lady guiding the horse though? I like to imagine her nipping off to meet friends at the 2i's in Soho after work, for an evening of fab tunes and frothy coffee.

Here's a really fab tune, albeit from the early 1970s rather than the early 1960s. The LP 'Dedicated to You, But You Weren't Listening' by The Keith Tippett Group was originally issued on the legendary Vertigo swirl label in 1971. A copy in decent condition will now set you back an eyewatering sum, should you be lucky enough to find one. Even reissues from 2012 are changing hands for £50 plus, so I'll have to stick with the CD for now.

The Keith Tippett Group - Black Horse