My water-themed photo arrived over at John Medd's gaff too late in the day to be included in his new monthly series last week, so here, rather belatedly, it is. Following a few days of biblical rainfall in mid-January, the local temperatures, to quote the Pythons, didn't so much fall as plummet. The gallons of standing water round these parts, became huge puddles of ice overnight - treacherous, but quite attractive. I ventured out one morning, slipping and sliding all over the place, to fire off a few shots with John's project in mind. This one, taken by the side of the river, though not a particularly large example, is a favourite from the bunch. By this time the sky was blue and the sun piercingly bright, casting shadows of the rushes across the ice. Apologies for my tardiness John, I'll attempt to be more on the ball this month.
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Several of my musical heroes took to their laptops during lockdown, to offer livestreamed shows - Christina Alden & Alex Patterson performed a few, Ed Kuepper beamed in a handful from Australia and Robyn Hitchcock never stopped doing them and is now at the 300 mark. Alasdair Roberts played just the one, but it was memorable indeed. He generally very rarely performs any Appendix Out material these days, but his livestreamed show surprised us all by being entirely made up of acoustic interpretations of some of his very earliest recordings. In June 2020 Alasdair consolidated his look in the rear-view mirror with the release of The Songs of My Boyhood, 11 acoustic reworkings of songs from the Appendix Out catalogue, including Ice Age, in its original incarnation the band's 1995 debut single.
6 comments:
Nice photo, even if it was too late. I missed the point of John's request completely so between us we weren't much use.
What a brilliant pic. It's all about the way you spotted its potential, you really have an eye for it - so many would pass it by and not notice the fascinating beauty of that little patch of ground and ice.
Already we have a splinter group - TS & Adam (I bet you two always sat on the back row at school!). Nice work, TS! I'll let you all know what March's theme is tomorrow, hopefully.
Musically and visually, this post is spot on for me, Swede. I’m always drawn to and fascinated by reflections - mirrors, water, shiny surfaces in general - that offer a different, frequently skewed or distorted glimpse of the world around. Frozen water can be brilliant for that as the images are often only hints and suggestions. Your photo captures that wonderfully.
Without stretching that analogy to snapping point, that’s also why I often like artists revisiting and reinterpreting their back catalogue. The best ones contain recognisable elements (usually the lyrics) but ‘look’ very different.
Having made those pretentious comments, I’ll confess I haven’t heard anything by Appendix Out (!) but I like this a lot and will be making up for lost time.
You two would have been at the back of the class but I am the eager beaver who would have been at the front - only the 12th, yet I'm already getting twitchy about not knowing the theme for March yet!
Great picture TS. We went to see an art exhibition yesterday and some of the paintings looked just like it. Amazing how that these things can be all around us but not until you capture the image you see the beauty of it.
Haha, not a splinter group at all John. I tried texting the photo to you, but it repeatedly bounced back so I eventually reverted to good ol' email, which probably went straight into your junk folder. Serves me right for leaving it too late. I'll try to do better this month.
Glad you enjoyed the post and tune Khayem. Alasdair put out three albums under the Appendix Out moniker, before reverting to his given name. They're all great, but then I would say that!
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