RIP Charlie

One weekend, more years ago than I care to remember (somewhere around 1985-ish I reckon), I was back in Ipswich staying with Mum and Dad. On Saturday evening I'd driven from my Essex base, where I was the manager of a record shop located within a shopping centre, dropped off my car and dirty washing at home and twisted Dad's arm to cadge a lift into town so I could meet a group of friends at the pub. Some hours later, after a riotous evening of imbibing, we said our goodnights and headed off for our respective homes. There were no night buses and my parents lived a two mile wayward stagger out of town. It took an eternity. 

On Sunday morning when I stumbled downstairs for coffee and cereal, Mum told me that there was a car-boot sale round in the hospital carpark. I put on some shades, pulled myself together and ambled the short distance to where the event was already in full swing. I couldn't really concentrate, had a thumping hangover and was about to head back home for more coffee when I spotted a large pile of LPs laying flat on the tarmac, one on top of the other. I flicked through a few before spotting a real good 'un that helped to clear my foggy head pronto - 'Gris-Gris' by Dr John, which I promptly stuck under my arm. Moving down the pile it quickly became apparent that this was an extraordinary bunch of records to find at a car-boot sale even then, some of which joined Dr John under my arm ('Fire on the Bayou' and 'Trick Bag' by The Meters, Cream's first album, 'I Feel It' and 'Don't You Want to Go?' by The Meditation Singers (both US imports on Checker), a Japanese pressing of 'Oh Yeah' by Charles Mingus and one or two others). Quite near the bottom of the stack and perilously close to a puddle, I came to a copy of 'Beggars Banquet' by The Rolling Stones. It was one of those hairs on the back of the neck moments as I looked more closely - the sleeve was signed by the whole band. Desperately trying to remain calm, I slid 'Beggars' into the middle of my pile of LPs and waved at the stallholder for a price. I got the lot for less than a fiver.

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We lost Charlie Watts yesterday and, even though he was 80 and in shaky health, it still hurts a lot. Both Mick and Keith have regularly acknowledged what an absolutely fundamental figure he is to the band and one wonders where they can possibly go from here. In this clip of 'All Down the Line' from 2006, the camera stays on Charlie for the entire performance. If you're not fussed about hearing the song, skip forward to his expression at the 4.35 mark - it's priceless.

Rest easy Charlie. 

Neck Another Pill to Make Me Feel Better

Sometimes at work, a random song (or part of a song) will get lodged in my head and become an eight hour long earworm. One day last week, for no apparent reason, it was 'This Feeling', the first single from 'Only Forever', the second LP by Puressence. I dug out my generic promo CD of the album when I got home and gave it a spin. It took me back. I saw Puressence just once, in 1998 a couple of months before the release of 'Only Forever', at The Barfly in Camden. That evening, I stood on one side of the room and my then recent ex-girlfriend and her new beau stood on the other. The tension in the air was palpable!

When I played through 'Only Forever' last week, I regretted never having picked up a proper finished copy of the CD in the ensuing 20 years. Yesterday morning, bright and early, Mrs S & I drove 20 miles to spend a couple of hours pottering around a large car-boot sale in a field just outside of Norwich. Half way along the very last row of stalls, as we were about to make our way back to the car, I crouched down to flick through a box of CDs on the ground - and there it was. A pristine copy of 'Only Forever'. Would you believe it? 'How much?' I asked, waving the CD above my head to grab the stallholder's attention. '50p' came the reply. Sold.

Puressence - This Feeling

The Mysterious Case of the 24 Beat Instrumentals

Did I ever tell you the one about what was, until recently (see here), my second best ever car-boot sale find?* It was ridiculously early one Sunday morning in 1991, in a shady corner of a car park, adjacent to Ipswich Town football ground and as I ambled along a row of tightly packed wallpapering tables, bowing under the weight of a thousand unloved nick-nacks, I spied a cardboard box on the ground, pushed back beneath a table and almost out of sight. I pulled the heavy box forwards and lifted the flaps to discover a pile of magazines, topped by a vintage copy of the Radio Times. Nothing too exciting here, I thought. Delving a little deeper, though, beneath several more old TV listing guides, lay 24 random issues of Beat Instrumental Magazine from the late 1960s and very early 1970s. I got the whole box for a quid.

During that period, Beat Instrumental was a publication where Clodagh Rodgers rubbed shoulders with King Crimson and an interview with Glen Campbell jostled for position with Viv Stanshall's latest column. I had hours of fun ploughing through the magazines, reading about 'underground' band Tyrannosaurus Rex shortening their name to T.Rex, Jimmy Page unveiling the line-up of The 'New' Yardbirds and The Trogg's adventures on a package tour with a new young band called The Jimi Hendrix Experience. Towards the end of the 1990s, with finances a little tight, I sold all 24 of the magazines for an amount that, at the time, it would've been silly to turn down.

The only reason I mention this fairly uninteresting little tale, is that at the weekend I stumbled, in not totally dissimilar circumstances, upon another batch of Beat Instrumentals. The weird thing is that, once again, there were 24 of them in the box. Not consecutive issues, but 24 random ones. I picked them up 50 miles from the location of that initial haul 23 years ago and 120 miles from where I later sold them, so I doubt they're the same magazines, returning like a group of long lost homing pigeons (though I've yet to totally rule this out), but why 24 again? Why not 5 or 10 or 50? Perhaps people only dispose of them in lots of 24 - I did. Perhaps 24 is my lucky number. Maybe it's time I did the lottery. Either way, my spare time reading material for the immediate future just took a turn for the better.

Here's Coxsone Dodd's house band, The Sound Dimension, with a killer Studio One instrumental entitled 'Heavy Beat'. You see what I did there? Instrumental.....Beat..... Oh, please yourself!

(*My number one best ever car-boot sale find? I really must share that, one of these days.)

Terry, Lil' and The Power Game

Mum's christian name was Lilian, which is what Nan invariably called her. To my cousins, she was Aunty Lily and to practically everyone else, she was just plain Lily. Except Dad. To him alone, she was always Lil'. Terry and Lil' were married 59 years ago today. I wrote a little bit about their anniversary a couple of years ago (here) and had no intention of doing so again this year, until one of life's funny little moments tapped me on the shoulder at the weekend.

Unknown to me, for my 6th birthday Dad sent a request into Two-Way Family Favourites on the BBC Light Programme. The tune he asked them to play for me was 'The Theme from The Power Game' by the Cyril Stapleton Orchestra, which I was obsessed with at the time. Much to my surprise and delight, Michael Aspel read my name and address out on the radio and duly played the record. Dad was on hand to capture the moment with his trusty reel-to-reel and I played the resulting tape of the broadcast to death after the event. Surprisingly, given that later in life I spent 21 years behind the counter of a record shop, I never did pick up a copy of 'The Theme from The Power Game' on any format, but I do still have that reel-to-reel tape.

Last Sunday morning, as I browsed idly through a box of singles at a car-boot sale, there it was. 'The Theme from The Power Game' by the Cyril Stapleton Orchestra...in a picture sleeve no less! I'd never actually ever seen a copy and I confess that I nearly had a bit of a 'moment' as I slid the record gently from the sleeve to discover that it was in pristine condition. The man on the stall was asking 20p, which I gladly handed over. Back at home, a couple of hours later, I blasted that big tune out at full volume, three or four times, one after another, reflecting on the lifetime that's passed since the afternoon in 1966, when Michael Aspel read out a little boy's birthday request on the radio.

As I gathered my thoughts, I began to wonder what might be on the b-side. The sleeve just mentions the title of the a-side and the only other Cyril Stapleton tune I know offhand is the theme from 'Department S', but that came a few years later. I lifted the single from the turntable, flipped it over, read the label and smiled. The b-side is entitled 'Lil'. Of course it is.

Here are both tunes.

Car Boots at Dawn

Last Wednesday at the crack of dawn, Mrs S & I sharpened our elbows and headed out to the first car boot sale of the season. We like a good rummidge and the first few events of the year are often the best. People who spend the winter sorting out their back room, shed or loft, stockpiling boxes of gubbins, arrive with carloads of accumulated tat, which we love to poke through. The mild weather ensured brisk business, probably around 250 stalls by the heat of the morning, though when we returned to the same venue on Sunday there were over 600.


While Mrs S filled her boots (and our boot) with vintage bits & bobs, I came home with a far more modest, though no less exciting haul - a 1962 EP of Wally Whyton singing children's favourites anyone? Also in my bag of goodies, not for the first time, were several old photos. If I see 'em and they look interesting, I just can't walk by on the other side. Take this one for instance. In the middle of a box of run of the mill family snapshots were these guys. What's going on? Why the hats? The chaps at each end look reluctant participants, but the main group are having a whale of a time - I sense that alcohol might be involved.


While we're at it, here's a considerably older photo showing how much a relaxing day at the beach has changed over the last hundred years.


This morning's car boot, despite the initial thick fog, was equally busy and my haul included a small painting, a few singles, a bag of early 20th century postcards, a John McLaughlin LP...and more photos. Well worth the early start. I'll be sure to report back with anything of interest that I pick up over the summer, though I'll have to go some to top my best ever car boot acquisition from about 20 years ago....but that's another story.

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Version City #10 - Pat Kelly

'Try to Remember' is a song from a musical, 'The Fantasticks', originally performed by Jerry Orbach in an off-Broadway production of the show in 1960 and thereafter covered many times in subsequent years.

Here's a bright 'n' breezy rocksteady treatment by Pat Kelly (often spelt Kelley), which appeared on the b-side of his 1969 single, 'How Long Will It Take?' I've had a scratchy copy of this 7" since the late 1970's, but on Sunday I was lucky enough to pick up an upgrade from a local car-boot sale for just 30p - good times!