Friday Photo #66

My view pitch-side at Wembley in July

When Bruce Springsteen & the E-Street Band toured Europe during the Summer of 2023, the only London date scheduled was for the vast, flat, atmos-free, chatterbox-infested Hyde Park. My E-Street buddy and I hummed and hawed, consulted our wallets, took a deep breath and headed out to catch a gig in Amsterdam instead, flying back via Edinburgh for a second show a couple of days later. In spite of coming hot on the heels of a nasty bout of Covid, it was a truly glorious experience, though, for a man of my meagre means, catastrophically expensive. Still, at their advanced age, we figured that these were probably the last precious opportunities to see the E-Street Band in full effect. How wrong I was. 

When another European jaunt was announced for the Summer of 2024, my pal and I, convinced that this really would be the last time, hocked our family heirlooms and caught two UK shows, at Sunderland and Wembley. 43 years after my first Springsteen gig just across the road in the Arena, I left Wembley Stadium tired and elated after a staggering three hour performance. A great one to finish on I thought, as I shuffled down Wembley Way towards the tube station.

So now Bruce is coming back to Europe yet again next Summer, ostensibly to mop up a few 2024 shows in Italy and Spain that had to be postponed when he fell ill, but he's also added a handful of UK dates to the run. This time I was absolutely going to give it a miss (as indeed I am with Dylan's potential UK concert farewell this very week), as money, in the immortal words of The Valentine Brothers, really is too tight to mention. My E-Street buddy talked me round though and consequently I now have debts no honest man can pay, because I've stumped up for one more night on E-Street in Manchester next May. 

A moving solo acoustic interpretation of I'll See You in My Dreams has closed practically every show for the past couple of years and call me an old fool, but it gets me every time. Here's Bruce performing it at the 20th 9/11 Memorial Ceremony in New York.

Monday Long Song

Lord knows I carry a few regrets around with me as I hurtle towards my dotage and pretty near the top of the list is never having learned to play the guitar. Periodically throughout my adult life, little made-up tunes have spent time rattling around the void between my ears in search of a home, only to disappear forever into the ether when it becomes clear that I have no means with which to transcribe them. In particular, I'm an enthusiast of what is usually tagged as American Primitive Guitar, though it's a descriptor that I'm not altogether keen on. The (mostly) solo acoustic music attached to the aforementioned genre is invariably anything but primitive in either composition or performance. Also, flicking through my collection, both physical and digital, a growing number of my favourite performers in this field aren't even American. 

Take for example Doctor Turtle from Brighton (or Simon Ounsworth to his mates), who has a big ol' pile of tunes to die for over on his Bandcamp page. The Turtle archive is set at a Name Your Own Price level and he's more than happy for us to enjoy the music without digging into our pockets at all, though should you wish to contribute towards Simon's strings and biscuits fund, you can of course drop a few coins into the tin on your way out. 

Doctor Turtle - The Void Says Hi

Monday Long Song

Sitting between Soft Machine's earliest psychedelic Canterbury scene fusion odysseys and the contemporary jazz-rock noodlings of their later line-ups, is the sometimes overlooked Karl Jenkins period. These days he is Sir Karl Jenkins, noted classical composer, though at the time he joined the band in 1972 he was a jobbing musician who'd already served as saxophonist for Graham Collier's late 1960s' group, played on the original recording of 'Jesus Christ Superstar', lent his oboe talents to Elton John's 'Tumbleweed Connection' and co-founded the mighty Nucleus with Ian Carr. 

Karl Jenkins' eight year tenure with Soft Machine commenced with 'Six', the album Swedefaced above. It's an ambitious affair, a double LP - one studio and one live. The band rarely sounded more European than they do on the Karl Jenkins composition, 'The Soft Weed Factor'.

Soft Machine - The Soft Weed Factor

Monday Long Song

The second ever single on the Rough Trade label featured Augustus Pablo's divine melodica drifting across the Rockers All Stars rhythm of Horace Andy's 'Mr Bassie'. The 1978 release was hugely influential amongst the the nascent post-punk counter loiterers back in the day and by all accounts is one of Geoff Travis's personal favourites. To the best of my knowledge 'Pablo Meets Mr Bassie' was only ever available as a 7", though let's offer a tip of the titfer to the anonymous online DJ who concocted this extended mix.

Augustus Pablo - Pablo Meets Mr Bassie

Friday Photo #65

Not too long ago, I stumbled upon a forgotten old external hard-drive, buried at the bottom of a box. Firing it up, I found 500GB of music, most of which I'd long since dragged and dropped elsewhere, plus a few dozen folders worth of photos. The majority of the snapshots had been backed up on other drives too, however to my surprise I spotted an unnamed folder containing around 30-40 Swedey McSwedefaces from 2017 & 2018, roughly half of which incorporated a cunningly positioned 7" single, where an LP would traditionally be. I have no memory of taking these shots, or what I originally had in mind for them, though they were obviously intended for the blog. Here's one now! 

Jon Hart's 'Toytown' was released in September 1980, very early on in my record shop career. The single marks Hart's one and only appearance on vinyl....and then the trail goes cold. Even this new fangled World Wide Web that everyone's talking about fails to throw up any further information about the man. One thing I can state categorically though, without fear of contradiction, is that Jon Hart was an admirer of  David Bowie's music circa 1967-69. How do I know this seemingly random fact? Take a listen to both sides of the single, then have a gander at the quite extraordinary, recently unearthed, period TV performance. Your jaw will drop.

Jon Hart - Toytown

Jon Hart - Recollections

Monday Long Song

So there I was, one November afternoon in 1976, propping up the counter of the record shop where, some three years in the future, I would eventually work. I wasn't yet as familiar with the staff as I would ultimately become, but, if I happened to be in the store when the kettle was boiling, I was invariably offered a brew. Customers trickled in, the cash register ker-chinged and the music played. Ah, if I close my eyes I can practically smell the old place.

The aforementioned kettle was pressed into service once again with the arrival of the rep from Phonogram Records. Back in the day, Phonogram handled the manufacture and distribution for a number of small labels including, at that time, Charisma. I'd wandered off up the shop, coffee in hand and was idly browsing through the racks when one of the staff called out to me. 'Do you wanna go to see Van Der Graaf Generator this evening?' I had a little history with band and knew they were playing locally, though with my abysmal teenage cashflow situation being what it was, I'd already discounted the possibility of going, but he was waving a ticket in my direction - a record company freebie!

A few hours later I found myself sitting in the stalls of a sparsely populated local theatre. Actually the phrase sparsely populated doesn't do the audience number justice. The room holds 1500, though I doubt there were 150 of us scattered around the place - little wonder that tickets were being given away. The band absolutely delivered nonetheless, playing a powerful set in support of their seventh LP, 'World Record'. The hefty (dare I say progfunk?) organ and sax driven 'A Place to Survive' was a favourite of mine back then and remains so to this day.

Van Der Graaf Generator - A Place to Survive

Friday Photo #64

It's the Spring of 1964 and I've just arrived home after a little rough and tumble down the park at the end of the road, probably instigated by the lad across at No.13 ringing the doorbell and, with all the innocence he could muster, asking Mum '...is Swede playing out?' My shirt hangs loose from beneath a favourite cardigan, one that I will outgrow within a matter of weeks. The wellies are still on and a plaster just above my left knee covers the most recent scrape in a childhood full of scuffs, cuts and grazes. Look at that face though - properly over-excited. The reason? It's right behind me. While I was out, Dad (and probably Uncle Ivor) had installed a full sized swing at the bottom of the garden - a swing! Actually at this point it's just the metal frame cemented into the ground, but the all important hanging bit would materialise shortly afterwards. The swing's arrival was a complete surprise and I'm impishly as pleased as punch about it.

On and off for a handful of young summers, that swing at the end of the garden was central to my world. The frame alone became a mini-chicane as I careered around the garden on a succession of scooters and bikes, it also formed the goalposts for a thousand kickabouts (reducing Mum's grass to a muddy swamp in the process) and it substituted as a Bat-pole for my imaginary adventures as the Caped Crusader. All this in addition to being a, y'know, swing! 

I've no idea (and irritatingly never thought to ask) how Dad acquired this magical plaything that made me the envy of my infant school pals and equally I have absolutely no recollection of it being dug up and removed from the garden a few years down the line, after I'd outgrown it it. The scruffy little scamp in the photo couldn't give a hoot about the details though. What larks he's going to have.

Mice Parade - Swing