Monday Long Song

A new, all singing all dancing, 50th anniversary super-deluxe reissue of The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis arrives this week, even though, in just over a month, the album will actually turn 51 years of age. At this stage of the game, the significant anniversaries pile up at an alarming rate I can tell you. My copy of the LP was one of a select group to survive the punk rock record collection purge of the late 1970s and indeed I subsequently purchased it twice more on CD, in original and remastered configurations. The CDs have left the building now (as indeed they all will eventually), but my original 51 year old LP with the Charisma mad hatter label, a half a century's worth of accumulated surface noise and slightly ring worn sleeve will see me through this life, that's for sure. 

As I listen to the album while typing these words, the memories of of old loves, half forgotten friends and high school high jinks echo down the years. Isn't it miraculous that music can do that?

Genesis - In the Cage

Friday Photo(s) #69

My gaff is in Suffolk, though only just. The River Waveney flows about 100 yards from my front door and this ancient waterway defines the county's boundary with Norfolk. Across the footbridge that spans the river is a substantial green space, protected in perpetuity for the town, even though, technically, it sits just outside the town. I use the meadow regularly as either a cut through, a brief circular walk or a place to stop and recalibrate while watching the river flow. To quote Courtney Barnett, sometimes I sit and think, and sometimes I just sit.

A vantage point just before the footbridge offers the opportunity of an uninterrupted view along a stretch of the river and it's one I seldom turn down. Here's that view in spring, summer and winter. It never gets old.

Brian Eno - By This River

Monday Long Song

Mal Waldron's 'Candy Girl' has been on my look-out-for list for a very long time, though, with original copies changing hands for silly money, I'd long since stopped holding my breath for an affordable one to appear within grabbing distance. Waldron released upwards of 100 albums under his own name between 1957 and 2002, almost exclusively as a jazz pianist. 1975's 'Candy Girl', however, finds him exiled in Europe, playing electric keyboards backed by the funktastic Lafayette Afro Rock Band, whose music would later be sampled by the hip-hop generation and beyond. I'm indebted to the fine folk at Strut Records for dusting off this obscure treasure of an LP and allowing me to finally cross it off the list.

Mal Waldron - Red Match Box