The beach.
A little apocalyptic here on the west coast but beautiful all the same.
pictures…
The sunset this evening. It’s been a rare dry day here in the Pacific Northwest.
Some days it feels like the calm before the storm or maybe the eye of the storm. Who knew the Midwest would be ground zero right now.
bring on the cabaret we can all have a laugh…
As a callow youth I borrowed this album because it had a red naked lady in heels swinging a burning guitar.
The album did not disappoint, plenty of guitar histrionics and glam rock/pop sensibility and the semi hit with Ships in the Night.
So here I am much older and still able to appreciate the excellent marketing of the album.
The songs range from glam to art rock, ballads and then all out rock braggadocio. It’s all over the place and consistently good. It’s also as if Bill Nelson was unsure what album to make, which is fine because it’s all excellent. Sleepy that Burns is fantastically all over the place power chords and quirkiness and guitar magic.
Fair Exchange is a road song, the sleaziness the glory, groupies and bands, there’s also Life In The Air Age, vaguely proggie sci-fi fun. Then we end with Blazing Apostles, salvation through rock and roll.
Yes that cover adequately prepared you for the sex, rock and roll, demons and the highways in the sky and the road to hell.
“it’s grim enough to make a robot cry…”
Pictures.
The view in the morning.
I’ve not it seems got a lot to say. Sad at Bob Weir’s death. All the hero’s are on the way out.
it just keeps turning around
I woke up from a dream the other morning about 3:30a.m. I was sitting by a hedge alongside a road waiting for a ride, reading Tolkien and brushing my teeth as Em rummaged in the rucksack looking for something to eat. It was early and we were tired and hoping for coffee at some point or at least tea. The thermos was dry and the eccles cake was not elven way bread.
I woke confused, this was 6000 miles away and at least 40 years ago. I must have been 19 and had no real cares other than to avoid the police, find a dry place to sleep and would Em still like me in the morning. It could’ve been 1985 and we were probably on the way to a festival or gathering or just had a wild idea to go somewhere.
I am assuming this actually happened. It was almost domestic. Two young people going through their morning routine. Of course it may have been my fevered imagination placing several memories together.
I lay in bed, trying to orient myself to the here and now and consider why this had woken me.
I dredged my mind trying to find what happened next, this was all that I had.
I rolled myself over in bed and tried to sleep again, I was however obsessed with what happened next. There was no context, the hedge could’ve been anywhere in England or Wales. It was your usual lay by hedge, plastic and paper caught in the branches and a gap where we had probably slept the night huddled together under a blanket in the warm summer evening, hoping it wouldn’t rain.
Around 4:30 or so I gave up and got up, I took the dog out to pee, ground the coffee beans and made coffee, sat down with the first cup of the morning and called my mum, she was doing okay, worried about her bills and the weather. I got my second cup and sat watched the weather and the reports from the war zone frontline in Portland and wondered at the lies the prez is throwing out there and a protester in a chicken suit sat leaning agains a wall. Michelle got up at some point and I made her coffee and we sat and chatted, then the day began, breakfast for the grandson, head him off to school and then to work. Just two aging ravers going through their morning routine. I guess Em must’ve wised up but Michelle has put up with me for 34 years or so, things worked out as they usually do.
I am at the other end of my life now. It’s slightly less adventurous, I am not sleeping under hedgerows and hitchhiking these days, still occasionally reading Tolkien and sometime we run out of coffee, but not often. Life has settled into a comforting routine, the biggest excitement is the skunk I am trying to get to live in a different hole not so close to the house.
The world is still fucked, its not Thatcher these days, the opposition is more cruel and callous and vindictive and more about personal aggrandizement than some form of ideology, there was a chance of defeating an ideology, defeating a morally bankrupt person with apparently ultimate power surrounded by yes men seems less possible. Time to stock up on coffee and essentials and hope we make it.
Ive been listening to Outsiders by Anna Tivel. It’s an honest album full of characters and storied that seemed immediate, fragile and real as well as important.
“nothing ever changes until you ring the bell…”
It’s a quirky album, at that place where folk intersects with jazz. It has a dream like quality off kilter perhaps. It’s that confessional, observational songwriting that seems familiar but it’s off kilter enough to stand out.
I wrote this a couple of months ago, tonight I pulled Outsiders out for a listen. Over the winter I’ve been drawn to women’s voices in music. Especially new music, and the more folk related sounds. Or the Grateful Dead for some reason.
So on one had the empathic voices of women on the other the sexist contradictory world of the Dead. As Betty Cantor once said you want to talk to the man in charge or the woman who knows what’s happening?
I’ve been immersing my tired brain in the Dead’s live output. It’s an exhausting and exhilarating adventure. Aided by the fact that on some level I can pick and chose the shows and not get bogged down by the less than stellar performances.
Tonight was Wembley Pool April 7th 1972. kind of a golden year Europe ‘72 is legendary and this doesn’t disappoint.
sing you little fuckers…
I’ve been distracted by the holiday and life and well the freaking rains did me I. Twice with two floods a week apart.
Week1
This one was reasonably benign.
Week 2;
Not so friendly this time.
Nothing off. We all survived and dried out but there’s a mess I’m slowly working on. Lost my greenhouse so I’m bummed.
We also had a power outage which was frustrating to say the least.
Is what I’ve been listening to. Kind of a one thought end of the year. I found a whole bunch of Dead live box sets which have been entertaining me.
The view looking up last night.
Well that was Christmas let’s see what the new year brings.
going where the water tastes like wine…
It’s always subjective. The Grateful Dead live releases. Dicks Picks vol 2 from 1971 is perhaps three perfect sides of Grateful Dead live. No Pigpen and Donna was on maternity leave. It’s a tighter leaner sound.
It’s only a partial concert and maybe its brevity is what makes it so good. Dark Star is terrifying and th Not Fade Away jam that ends things is joyful
It’s hard to know which Dick’s, Daves’s, or various Road tripes etc to invest in. There’s something to enjoy in them all and let’s face it we have to feed the Dead machine. There’s always the internet archive as well.
On with the trip.
or Lead Foot Melvin with his hot-wire head…
I’ve been trying to keep my head down, don’t make waves, stay calm. It’s like being on a bad trip, hold on this too will pass but the paranoia keeps peaking, they’re out to get me or those I love, and this time it could be true.
This is everyday in newmerica and it’s worse for the other. Realizing that in a few months sixteen people and their children will be homeless, trying to find alternative funding, the community pulls together and it’s done. For now.
I’m rationing the news.
Even the football sucks.
We got the tree out and decorated, it’s hard to find the season of goodwill.
What did Roy say? “You Christians destroyed this world I’ll fight you ‘til I die.”
Since when was it ever okay to just randomly kill people because they’ve been labeled a certain way?
In 1985 I remember hiding behind a tree watching what I thought was my world fall apart as the blue uniforms crushed a dream. I remember thinking it was important to be a witness. Someone wrote a song, we all learned to find a new way. I get that feeling again as the dream is crushed by the lies.
I closed my eyes the other day and hit some residual memory of a psychedelic afternoon on Bold St. News from Nowhere and on to some strange record shop where I bought a bootleg album by Neil Young but lost it by the time I hit half way down Church St. For awhile I sat wondering what was going on, until the sound of the coffee pot brought me back to reality.
Finding ways to resist that helps, doesn’t make it worse for those targeted. Fighting the dehumanization, giving people names not allowing the othering.
I saw the DA in a parking lot. He was looking ragged around the edges, he’s a decent man doing a thankless job in a sanctuary state.
I stumbled my way through the day in a daze, it’s hard to motivate. Too much to do, too many needs too little time.
I played Joni and felt better.
“No regrets coyote…”
I was trying to figure out what Joni I wanted to hear, I was wanting live and ragged and smooth and this archival release met all the needs. 1976 with the L.A. Express, I remember being so disappointed by the official release from this tour, Miles of Aisles, too slick, too good, how ignorant I could be, I wanted waif like folk troubadour Joni and got worldly exotic Joni, travelogues and seduction and the rhythm of the night.
These days its exotic Joni I love, every now and then a lyric jumps out, “fresh lipstick glistening…” I get lost in an image, take a trip to France or New Orleans, L.A and the road, traveling, restless and singular. Then another lyric or a guffaw or giggle or sideways comment.
About once a month it seems I have this mini freak out, it’s watching the black SUV’s prowling the streets, the masked men and their institutionalized cruelty. The callousness of the true believers in clutching their self righteousness and wrath for those who diverge from their opinion. I find myself frozen and searching for a way out, find an ice cube to suck on, put your forehead on something cool, breathe, listen to your heart, slow down it’ll be alright, but will it?
This morning I built raised beds. “remember the amnesty in ’87?” I wasn’t here then, it was a Reagan initiative allowing over 3 million illegal immigrants to apply for amnesty and become citizens. In no way would that pass muster with the Trumpain (“republican”) party these days. How far have we strayed? I am no fan of Reagan, he really pushed the pendulum in favor of the corporations and wealthy and with his pal Thatcher I am sure is roasting somewhere for his sins. It is however a demonstration of how far from normalcy we have gone as country.
Sitting on a step and drinking coffee with three generations of Mexican immigrants there was a part of my mind that thought maybe if we could just humanize each other, then I realized that it doesn’t matter right now, some have wallowed in the koolaid too much. With that cup of coffee though I could sit back and close my eyes and think that really this is how it should be. I sat and listened as they chatted away in Spanish and every now and then allowed me to be part of the conversation, it felt comfortable.
Heading out into the dystopian present where we are all part of our own feed. One person’s friend is another’s enemy, demonized by place of birth or color of skin.
step on pavements so old…
Yes I paid too much for this, it seemed necessary. Bert at the Beeb.
There’s something undeniably authentic about Bert Jansch. Whether he’s got a band with him or solo there’s always a sense that each of the chosen songs has been carefully curated and there’s a reason he’s singing. Even if it’s just that the particular song fit a mood he was experiencing.
Running From Home sometime in my mid 20’s felt like a true reflection of my life. Working so hard to get away from something and always looking back at that thing. knowing eventually there’d be a return.
There are several repeat versions of songs on this. Never do the versions feel rote or thrown out to appease the audience. Every song has a purpose and fits a mood. Bert’s one of a very few artists who managed to stay relevant by never giving a toss about his own relevance.
ring-a-ding…
I just spent ten days in the UK saying hi to my mum. It was kind of a stealth visit. I had some very specific tasks to complete
Tile the kitchen, don’t ask, no she’s not going to get a professional I don’t know why!
Get the heating to work properly, it already was but you really have it turn it on.
Clean the gutters.
Some doctor’s appt’s. one minor surgery.
Get the freaking smart meter to work properly, not so easy.
Resolve the growing costs of tv and internet in a way that didn’t confuse her.
Tiles were laid etc.
There was one night out, old men on the town on a Saturday night. What have they done to the Casa, it’s unforgivable and don’t let me start on the cultural murder that Erics is.
I’ll be back in the new year and I’m hoping to be more engaged with things other than chores.
Bert Jansch was my constant companion during my visit. On the horrible streaming services. Over the last year I’ve become obsessed with Jansch and his very humble sound that is timeless.
I was sat in the pub with Schoey. We were sitting silent in the gloom of the bar and he turned to me and said. “Remember that time I peed on a hay bale with Bert Jansch!” Funnily enough I did.
It Don’t Bother Me is Jansch’s second album is a looser less focussed album than the first. What always amazed me about this album is the subject matter, commercialism, apartheid, infidelity, abuse, and its 1965. It’s an honest album and moments of true beauty.
In the end we all have to walk home in the dark.
I’ll be more sociable in May.
timeweleftthisworldtoday 