55 From 55 - 2012

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far.

My self-imposed rules going into this series (I do like a self-imposed rule) were; a) No tunes that have previously graced these pages, b) No appearances from any of my all- time favourite bands, c) One song per artist, d) No photos I've shared before and e) No stories I've told before. As '55 From 55' winds down, I can say in all honesty that while none of the above rules have been badly broken, some of 'em have taken a bit of a bending. We're now into the years where I was really having a proper crack at this blogging lark after initially just playing around with it and therefore I realise that I'm at a greater risk of repeating myself, so these last few posts will be more in the nature of a general rounding-up of present day life in and around Swede Towers.

A while back, I found myself musing (here) on the total number of places I've called home so far in my life. In October 2011, after a few frustrating legal delays, I, along with Mrs S, moved into what I calculate to be my 14th home. We're in a small village, though just a mile across the marsh from the nearest town. Our house used to form part of a much larger one, but the two were divided in a roughly two thirds/one third split. We're in the one third bit and we call next door 'the big house'. In the second half of the 19th Century the building was the village shop and close inspection of the brickwork, internal and external, shows the ghostly outlines of where original configurations of doors and windows once were. This is how the it looked back then.

I'm currently sitting at the window above the lamp, which is presumably positioned to light the shop window. The lamp is long gone, as is the window. Below me now is our street door.

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Baltimore's Lower Dens have just issued their third LP, 'Escape From Evil'. The record is the follow up to 2012's 'Nootropics', which featured the fabulous motorik driven 'Brains'.

55 From 55 - 2011

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

In the 48 hours following Mum's passing in December 2010, I received a series of warmly appreciated condolence messages from virtually everyone I worked with, the notable exception being the Area Manager, my immediate boss. I heard nothing from him for 5 days. When he finally called, he offered no words of consolation and merely attempted to get me to commit there and then to a return to work date. He also informed me that I wouldn't be returning to my own store, but was required to take over a new unit that had opened during my sabbatical.

In spite of a general unease about life in the corporate sector after so long in small business, I worked hard and diligently for the company because a) I had debts to pay off and b) If I take something on, I don't believe in giving half measure. I worked very long hours, rarely got my allotted two days off per week and never once in ten years came close to using my full annual holiday entitlement - as a salaried employee, these were 'use it or lose it' elements of my contract, with no overtime payment option. I'm not complaining. For much of the time I enjoyed the challenges of the job - no two days were ever the same, that's for sure. But I was now at my lowest ebb and it was only by the grace of Mrs S's steadying presence that I was able to function at all. I had hoped for at least a little compassion. Business is business though.

A man on the move, 2011.

I took a good look at myself - the distance I'd travelled, the amount I'd stretched my own abilities and the success I'd achieved within the company, culminating in being named brand Manager of the year in 2010. I was nearly 51. Was I really in any state to dive back in and run myself ragged all over again? My sabbatical, Mum's passing and now the conversation with my boss had given me perspective. In January 2011, I handed in my notice.

Mrs S and I had been considering a move before Mum's health issues put all plans on hold. In the Spring of 2011, after we'd finished clearing Mum's house, we tentatively started looking for a new place to live.

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Death Cab For Cutie are one of those bands that only turn up once in my collection. The album in question is 'Codes and Keys' from 2011. I like this record a lot, but for some reason I've not yet checked out very much more of their output. The brilliant 'You Are a Tourist' was a favourite in the house all year. This official video for the song is the first ever live, scripted, one-take music video shoot.

55 From 55 - 2010

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

In 2010 I hit 50. It was a year that began with an unexpected work related triumph and ended in deep personal sadness. In the Spring, at the company's annual conference, I was named store manager of the year, in front of 3000 of my peers. The award was a complete shock and came with a significant financial reward. On the day, though grateful, my mind was elsewhere. After Christmas 2009, Mum's condition had deteriorated sharply. Up to then she'd still been quite active, but now she couldn't walk more than a few steps and was unable to leave the house unaided. Her medication was no longer keeping her illness under control.

Mum encouraging me to take my first steps in 1961.

I applied for a period of unpaid leave from work, which was eventually granted, and spent the next 6 months staying with Mum for 4 or 5 days a week, while professional care was given by daily visits from District Nurses. I bought a collapsible wheelchair that I could throw in the back of the car and, when she felt up to it, took her out for country drives, trips to the coast and pub lunches. Throughout this period her health waxed and waned and she spent a number of short spells in hospital, 'to recharge the batteries'. It was a privilege and joy to be able to share so much time with Mum during those months and when she passed away in December, the grief was, and is, exceptionally crushing. 

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My most prominent musical memory of 2010 is from Friday June 25th, when Mark E.Smith strolled onstage at Glastonbury, wearing one glove, to join Damon Albarn, half The Clash and the rest of The Gorillaz for a storming, glamtastic, 'Glitter Freeze' from the 'Plastic Beach' LP. It's just perfect, from Mick Jones' welcoming, '..alright Mark?', onwards. The only thing missing from the performance is MES's classic spoken intro to the studio version of the song - 'Where's North from 'ere?'.

55 From 55 - 2009

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

My Cousin and I, both only children, grew up in the same house in Walthamstow from her birth in 1963 until the mid-1970's, her family lived upstairs and mine downstairs. Over the intervening years we've remained as close as brother and sister. Since the late 1980's she's lived in New York where she and her husband now have three fantastic kids of their own.

Our local, when we're in New York.

Each Summer the New York contingent of the family come over for a couple of weeks to visit my Cousin's Mother, who's now in her mid-80's. In 2009 they spent a week of their stay at Centre Parcs and invited my Mum along to share their holiday. Mum had a great time, still in relatively good health and was clearly invigorated by spending time with the kids.

Road trip. Driving out over Brooklyn Bridge.  

In October of 2009 Mrs S and I took ourselves off to New York once again, to catch up with the family on their own patch. I'd finally cleared all of my record shop debt over the previous couple of years and our belts weren't quite so tight. The pressure for continued financial growth at work was immense though. The company expanded at an alarming rate, results were everything - and needed to be achieved by whatever means necessary. I could do the job and do it quite well, but I was increasingly uncomfortable in the corporate world.

Manhattan from the road.

While in New York, Mrs S and I caught several concerts, but were frustrated to note that Vic Chesnutt was playing the Bowery Ballroom on October 26th, the night we were due to fly home. We'd seen Vic live a couple of times on previous visits, though this time he was touring on the back of his new LP, 'At the Cut', with a fine band comprising members of Thee Silver Mt. Zion and Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I hoped for snow so that our departure might be delayed and allow us to attend, but we flew out, as planned, on a mild clear evening. Maybe we'll catch him again next time, I thought.

Tribeca.

'At the Cut' is an intense piece of work, dark and raw, nowhere more so than on 'Flirted with You All My Life', a song only matched by Nick Drake's 'Black Eyed Dog' in terms of its utter bleakness. Tragically, there would be no next time to see Vic Chesnutt. He took his own life two months later, on Christmas Day 2009.

55 From 55 - 2008

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

Mum showed remarkable resilience after losing Dad in 2007. Her broken hip recovered well and she kept herself very busy. She'd always been the outgoing one and now threw herself into voluntary work in the WRVS cafe at the local hospital and at a couple of charity shops in town. She also built on strong friendships with several near neighbours. I kept Dad's car and drove down to stay with her at every opportunity, taking her shopping once a week and to the hospital once a month, for a consultation with a Myeloma specialist. Outwardly she was coping well with being alone after over 50 years of marriage, though an Aunt let it slip that Mum had mentioned that she found the deafening silence in the house very difficult to adjust to. Dad had always been a very noisy man! He sang, whistled, drummed and generally crash, bashed and walloped his way through life. Mrs S will be happy to vouchsafe that his son is following in his Father's noisy footsteps!

Unshaven scruff. 2008.

I was busy too. I'd been given yet another coffee shop branch to open (this one on a trading estate) with another newly recruited team. On my many drives to and from Ipswich to visit Mum, I listened to a lot of spoken word - audio books, comedy, Radio 4. On the rare occasions that I actually played music, it was usually a Minimal Techno compilation. 'Enfants' by Ricardo Villalobos is minimalism taken to the Nth degree and the perfect tune to take out on the road when your brain is full to overflowing. The looped sample is taken from Christian Vander's 1995 choral reworking of Magma's 1973 prog-rock classic, 'Mëkanïk Dëstruktïẁ Kömmandöh'. This one won't be for everybody.

55 From 55 - 2007

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far.

When Dad's car failed its MOT at the end of 2006, the garage told him that it was beyond repair and, after a few months cogitation, he bought a tiny second hand Daewoo Matitz to replace it. He was initially reluctant buy another car at all, finding driving increasingly tiring, but at 76, unable to walk more than a few steps and too stubborn to entertain the idea of a motability scooter, a car was the only way he could leave the house and go anywhere with Mum, who had never learned to drive.

Mum & Dad in 1953, two years before they were married.

One afternoon in May of 2007, after Dad had pulled up in front of their house, Mum started to get out of the car, but caught her foot in the seat belt and rolled, rather than fell, onto the grass. It was a drop of around nine inches, but enough to break her hip. Until this point Mum had been a very active 73 year old. As a result of standard tests before her hip surgery, it was discovered that Mum had Myeloma, failing kidneys and a weak heart. Serious problems, but manageable with medication, at least in the short term. Dad nursed Mum with great tenderness as she convalesced after her hip operation, which was difficult for him given his own poor mobility. He did his best to hide it, but I could see that he was really shaken by her accident and subsequent diagnosis. By the November of that year, however, she was recuperating well and was walking again with the aid of a stick.

Riding a miniature railway. 1964

I was alone at work on the evening of November 25th, cashing up at the end of a hectic day in the coffee shop, when I got a call from Mum's mobile phone. The line was very poor and it took her several attempts to make me understand what she was saying. Dad had been taken ill. She was with him at Ipswich Hospital. Come quickly. Then we lost the line. I was 45 miles away and didn't own a car. I threw the takings into the safe and headed to the train station, arriving just as a train was pulling out. It was a 30 minute wait until the next one. 45 minutes later my phone rang again. It was Mum, the line even worse than before. She was in the back of an ambulance. Dad was being taken to Colchester Hospital, a further 20 miles away. I heard the siren wailing in the background, then we lost the line again.

Their last holiday. Cromer 2005

I left the train at Ipswich and got a taxi across town to pick up Dad's car from outside my parents' house, then drove on to Colchester. Throughout the train journey I'd been trying to get hold of Mum again with no joy. I tried and failed once more when I reached the car park at Colchester Hospital. It had been nearly two hours since I'd spoken to her and I had no idea where in the hospital she and Dad were. The staff at reception couldn't locate them at first either, but were very helpful and phoned around various parts of the hospital for me. Finally an orderly called me over and asked me to follow her. She ran off quickly, which alarmed me, and I struggled to keep pace. We ran down corridors and up stairs - I'd never been inside Colchester Hospital before and was completely lost. She suddenly stopped running and opened an unmarked door. Inside was a tiny room where Mum sat in the corner cradling a cup of tea, a nurse at her side. Mum looked up as I entered the room. She was pale, wore a blank expression and seemed terribly, terribly small. She was in shock. As I stood in the doorway, catching my breath and looking at Mum in a state of confusion, another nurse, standing to my right, put her hand on my shoulder. '.....I'm very sorry.....' she said, '.....we lost him 10 minutes ago.....' I was too late. Dad was gone.

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55 From 55 - 2006

55 songs in 55 days - one for every year of my life...so far. 

In late 2005 I was shunted from my comfy nook in the bookshop to open a new coffee shop branch, situated within the walls of a soulless shopping centre. I recruited a brand new young team for the job, all of whom wanted Radio 1 on in the staff room - Radio 1! I hadn't listened to daytime Radio 1 since...., well since I was their age! It was awful! I initially considered gouging my eardrums out with a rusty spoon to alleviate the tedium, but over time I eventually managed to relegate the majority of the aural wallpaper to the background of my consciousness.

Taken by my Cousin's 6 year old Daughter. 2006.

A Radio 1 programme that I did actually quite enjoy and which was the soundtrack to our late close every Friday evening, was Pete Tong's Essential Selection. Tong was no John Peel, but after the daytime drivel I'd been subjected to for hours on end, some of the tunes he played sounded positively cutting edge. Occasionally, Tong would spin a genuine cutting edge selection. One Friday evening in 2006 for example, he introduced me to 'Simpler' by Pete Heller, a minimal prog-house classic that still gets me dancing in my head every time I hear it. Mind you, if you think this is minimal, wait til you hear what's coming up in 2008.