Aah had fallen out (well, been booted out) of my first serious relationship. She - Emmy Lou, Little Feat John Martyn and moving on and me - lost, disconnected, self pitying and nowt new in music going on for a soundtrack of me misery. Okay, okay, aah still see 'Boulder ter Birmingham' as our song - and completely identify with Gram Parsons. She left me in flames in the desert. Negev ter be precise. Where off came the post hippy, salt encrusted New Zealand grown dreads. Three months living in Israel does that - no decent music. Israeli pop in 1977 were mushy an' summat indecent, only made pale by Israeli disco and everywhere...guns, serious guns. "Dancing' at the disco with me gun at me feet". Loads of dancing boot mostly in circles, the hora. The disco hora, the runnin' away screaming hora, with a bit of freefall, post hippy boogie hora. While on Friday nights, horaing boogie while polishing off sweet Carmel wine left on tables in kibbutz canteen, abandoned by the sabras who said they did not drink! Mabbe, boot not Israeli wine. Yer cannot let the syrup go ter waste?Aye being in Israel were serious post modernist stoof! The call ter prayer from the minarets across Jerusalem were a musical memory aah took away with me, as aah boarded a plane in Tel Aviv bound for Munich. Like Maori waiata, it touched the raw wound of my tortured and my only joost post adolescent soul.
In Munichen it were beer festival time, with wall ter wall Kiwis, Aussies and Brits. When escaping the crowd and finding a 'quiet' (not full of the beer fest mob) beer hall full of older German men in lederhosen sinking buckets of frothy yellowy-brown ale or lager, while sat at tables laden with bread, plates of sausage and pickled cabbage - listening to oompah bands and singing. All grand until my poor German picked oop one song sounded like the Horst Weisel song. My companion: "You can't be serious?" Yup. Rup a pup pum, "Die fahne hooch!" Raise the bloody flag high. And they were singing lustily swinging two foot high beer tankards in time. But was it imagination? Aah heard marching feet and glass breaking. Not the soundtrack aah needed to remind me where aah had just come from. Mayaan Baruch and its sad coterie of Polish jews surrounded by the ghosts of all they had lost and these red cheeked, whiskered faced men of an older age in their local seemingly celebrating fascism. Scooted out of there with a pocket of stolen sausages, bread, a sour taste and fear. Time ter leave, aah'm sure it were 1977 not 1937.
Hitch hiking across Germany, picked oop oot of Munich by a lawyer in a black mercedes who told oos he were 'representing' Baader Meinhof. It were an interesting discourse on radical European politics while being driven at speed on the autobahn, ending when traffic slowed for a security road block ahead. We were booted oot onto roadside, with a wad of marks ter catch a boos, as the lawyer decided he were turning around; there were stoof in the car he would prefer not ter have pawed over by polis. A night by side of freeway near Liege before a stop off with me family in Bruxelles. Remember me? Yer brother's daft, wild child? Soundtrack still depressingly, seven years after my last visit with them, Johnny Hallyday. - better known as Jean-Philippe Leo Smet who brought rock and roll ter Belgium. A bit like that radical in the UK, Cliff Richard, boot not as edgy. Mon oncle still toe tapped ter 1950's Belgian lounge lizard crooning. Oozing disappointment in his nephew, he boosted me cash reserves enuff ter get oos across the North Sea at narrowest point. I limped inter Dover after six months on road, stuffed with travel, boot nowt mooch new in music ter chew on and hitched west with a pack the size of an orange wardrobe.
Winter was coming, and 6 months living in Wales. All rugby, blurry choirs and colliery bands. Naw, wrong end of the land of the red dragon. Gwent. Autumn was dying in in the Wye Valley with the last flaming of red, orange and yellow autumn leaves. Mist thicker than marmalade and the creeping appearance of sparkling, biting frosts. Beautiful to see, frigging cold ter walk on. In a big hoose, that used ter be a barn with an Aga, and an open fire where yer could burn whole trees. The cold wind rattled doors and window frames. A wind tha if yer were daft enough her step outside, froze yer bones ter icicle an chalk. Nowt like the one oop north boot! Then sleet followed by snow, followed by more sleet, to an endless repetitive soundtrack of folk music. Never seen so many bongo and penny whistle specialists in one room. (Folk under that roof preferred the Incredible Dip Shits rather than the more muscular Fairport Convention). I knew at what chord ter run screaming from the warm heat blasted room, oot inter cold corridors ter dive under thick blankets and moan. Me frozening hands clutched over frost bitten ears.
It were a commune run by a once left wing writer but now conservative but compassionate christian. A literary intellectual. A hoose with an endless tide of folk passing thru. Some entertaining, some weird and a few joost bad. One weird and bad visitor taken in by the religious nutters amongst us was later implicated in a particularly gory murder. Aye, boot some I liked, sooch as a Brazilian Sikh couple. He would get oop at spuggy's fart, (still dark) stand almost naked in the freezing pond and practice twirling serious, sharp edged swords. She were often the oasis of calm amongst weird post industrial grunge hippies, the free-loaders and communards.
Wacky-backy and elder flower and parsnip wine (the colour of horse pish boot weaker in flavour - only joost mind) were cheap favourites ter keep oop spirits and mad dancing going. The resident house musos, mostly guitar players, were journeyman good. Their party piece were ter play every pre 1970 pop song yer might possibly know. From Leadbelly's "Goodnight Irene" ter "Blue Moon - yer kept me standin' St James on a cawld night!" and Beach Boys medley. The highlight? 'Heartbreak Hotel' played by a Cantebrian rugger bugger Kiwi with no kit on. Aye, the acoustic guitar did its cover job on both levels. I bet John Cale never got inter tha song as mooch! Those were fun nights of suppin parsnip wine (naw I joke), ter soundtrack of duelling acoustic guitars, and me singing like a donkey taking a crap.
It were also a life of pubs, pubic lice, poetry, real ale and home made bread tha scoured yer innards like compressed brillo pads. And too many meals that had beans in em. Some weird flattened red bean that was the only bean that grew in abundance in our 'organic' garden, along with acres of ant piss tasting Jerusalem artichoke. We had sacks of these dried bloody beans, that yer had ter soak fer at least a week before they could be cooked. Even then, they were so tasteless even the pigs turned oop their snouts at em. Boot there were regular trays of fresh bread pulled out of Aga every morning, until some numpty had idea of grinding them beans inta flour..."Hello, give me missing persons..." That were me, although it were Little Feat that sung it.
There were work. Piece-meal. Chopping down Christmas trees, gardening and cleaning jobs for rich folk. But no regular job, therefore no money. No girlfriend (not from a lack of trying) and given the experimental nature of commune living, for me bugger all sex. But one night the sound of my former girlfriend humping someone else. Did they have her make it sound like they were enjoying their selves? It were that kind of place - anything goes and then gone. But then why were I surprised like? It were in the middle of the very weird but by day seemingly completely normal, Forest of Dean. A community of fairy, feral folk spawned from mists of time and through the seed of ancient ghostly trees. They spoke in a soft burr, boot yer didn't want her be on wrong side of em. We were tolerated outsiders when we worked alongside them. This afore one Dennis Potter hit the square screen with the Singing Detective - which made some sense of the old and spooky undercurrents running through that part of Gwent. One night, there were a gigantic storm and me oot in it ter check oop on the commune's cows. Their field in the middle of ancient woods. The ferocity of the storm, the lightening lighting me path, rain that fell like shards of ice. It left me scoured ter the core in awe, wantin more. If yer had ter believe in the wild red teeth of the natural wurld that were the night. Man? Fook off, punny flea compared ter nature. Trees in the fields came down boot deep in the woods, Forrest of Dean, trees roared back at the storm. Then down the road were the ruins of Tintern Abbey and yon William Wordsworth still composing lyrics fer boy bands ter come. Aye it were something magical and special.
I can't say there were owt of music I took away from there except a bit of fun and Dylan Thomas's "A Childs Christmas in Wales." You hum and I'll mumble along. Boot contemporary music happening in 1977? In Wales, in England. Where was the rumble? Nowt that came my way! In village pubs old men still preferred fiddles, squeeze boxes and a good sing along. Mabbe, overdosed on parsnip wine and stoofed with inedible, tasteless beans I were not listening... as the Bluebells arose, I tossed in the post hippy hard core communal living experiment, stook oot me left, thumb and headed east, towards the doorty streets of London, the big lights of promise, live music and Dick Whittington's cat's ghost, beckoning me on.
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| Arrivin' in Lunon |
London in 1978, punk were already in its death throes. On Chelsea's King Street, punks still roamed boot now dressed ter make a carefully posed fashion statement; superior cut of tartan trows; attitude gobbers with posh accents trying her sound working class mixing it with the Sloane Rangers, Chelsea fans and the embittered and drunk writers from the World's End pub. Sometimes hard ter see where one began and other ended. The musical fire and bile that gave punk credibility as protest had almost burned out and a dry, dry wind was blowing across tha brief ejaculation of a musical revolution. X-Ray Spex still carried a tattered flag of (s)punk tartan live with Poly Styrene belting out tuneless thrash that sometimes, joost sometimes came together. And there was still Siouxsie with her Banshees; black eyeliner, bin liners, mascara, high-pitched screeching and a satisfying purgative to yon Stevie Nicks. Then yer had deafening metal like punk from UK Subs their working class fanbase grimley proud of still being punk purists; defying gravity with tall upstanding bearskin mohawks and gurls with more slap than concrete poured on a building site, a sight ter behold. One night I snogged one and our faces stuck together. Dead romantic like.
I were in London joost in time to see the Clash and Steel Pulse* play at an Anti Nazi League rally in a big park south of the river. Steel Pulse on the back of a flat bed truck, dread, stoned and very indifferently cool. Clash had released "London's Burning" and were all snarling, driving guitar interspersed with reggae and jazz riffs. And for the next three years I lived or squatted by the riverside. Mind you, somewhere in the very distant future, lay in wait the Bad Shepards. Mr Edmonson intoning the wurds ter London's burning with all the finest of an English teacher, tweed jacket an all, while behind him fiddle, ukulele and acoustic guitar danced a merry jig. Who would have thought? Not Joe Sumner. Ganja dusks in Brixton. The rich, over ripe smell of London. Every where was some brick related to history. The dirt and buzz. Pigeons covered in sores and rats the size of cats and cats pitiful and bedraggled. Sharing a house, a squat with Basques, Catalans, anarchists and of course kiwis. I played in street theatre, political and avant garde; wurking as a builders labourer in renovating warehouses, while writing excruciating words that only I mistook for poetry. And I published a book of 'em. What were better were the photographs, black and white that went with them. I thought me poetry would bring me instant fame. Move over Liverpool poets - make way fer a Geordie! Instead I fell flat on me face. Nee one review! Ah decided from then on, poetry was only me own dark window into me soul. Tha place the kept me oop at night. Nae other bugger needed ter read the drivel I wrote. It did me good ter get it oot via pen onter paper. Boot one day...Why aye, that Belgo Geordie man, makes Auden look like a stoofed sock. Waal, dreams are free...whadda ya mean tha'll cost me a fiver?
Screaming around London roads on a silver, six speed Eddy Merckx racing bike with the chord chopping Django Rheindhert soundtrack hard-wired inta me brain. Wearing cherry red docs an' red, black or lime green skin tight cords. Fitter then than a cats fiddle. Skinnier than a cats fiddle. Less sex than a cat's fiddle. In Brick Lane market with Red Danny, all six foot three of him in his grey posties greatcoat, red beard and flowing Viking locks, eyeballing the National Front skins with their mono statements of racial superiority. Keep Britain white? Tell that ter Picts and all who followed them - shite fer brains. The NF stalwarts badly wanting to give both of us a good kicking but were right-wingerly confused by Danny's Millwall scarf. Nobody loved them and Danny didn't care. Two tone were kicking off (the Specials live were summat special as were Selector) boot I missed one Specials gig at the Lyceum when they blew the stage apart with dance energy. For me, too much vodka and a product outta Morocco left me passed out on me bedroom floor. An niver did vodka pass these lips again knowingly! The Specials in Sydney in 2018 were a pale shade of something going through the motions, Terry Hall a dancing robot. Boot at the time...it were a message ter Rudy, with small, short haired mod girls gyrating in tiny skirts and thick opaque tights like genies out of the bottle. The boys in black crumpled suit jackets, white string ties an' pork pie hats. It were a bag full of fun and in them days I could dance! Selector and Pauline Black, The Beat. It were right tasty fer working oot leg and bum muscles on packed dancefloor.
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| Reasons ter be cheerful like...brown ale, meat pies and takin me shirt off in the rain |
The Slits with a boot in both camps, punk and ska. An' attitude yer could fry an egg on! One deranged Ian Drury had left Kilburn High Road and with the Blockheads was cutting up large with a band tighter than a duck's waddle. An attitude yer could coddle an egg on! "Brand New Boots and Panties" was always going to appeal. Massive from the photo on yon album cover, the wee lad a dead ringer for Belgo at that age, through ter each song a gem of story telling. As for Mr Drury's poetry of Lunnon delivered with both the passion of a pantomime villain and dead pan everyman of comedie del arte. Classic vignettes of the London I were getting ter know. Hit oos with his rhythm stick? He pulverised oos, covered oos in custard and jam and left oos wanting more. Not a man or band ter be trifled with!
Then this Geordie pub band called Dire Straits had a hit with "Sultans of Swing". Understated and a summer soundtrack, that is briefly like when there was an English summer on offer. I remember a hot day in our squat in Balham where we stripped off inta shorts and nowt else and took ter the garden (small lawn, a few bushes and a lot of fence-line and the smell of drains) to bask like antipodean and Iberian lizards as one of our more seriously weird English housemates made a rare outdoor appearance. Nay not an anarchist, boot an escapee from the yoong Conservatives, dropped off at oor hoose by his parents. The perils of squats, where all were welcome! Oot came the wee lad inta the unnatural heat of England burning, in his anorak (regulation navy), long trows, grey thick socks and sandals, blinking pasteyly oop at the bright big yella thingy in the shimmering sky, makin' oos sticky with sweat. "Tha son is the sun!", we said, like boord watchers spotting a rare bit of feather passing thru these parts. Poor lad, skin the colour of lard, coot-price brain frizzling in anxious response ter a new experience, he was not ter know. He blinked twice at all the brown, red and pink flesh sizzling draped aboot the garden in a sensuous tableau more Matisse than Turner, saw the girls had no tops on. His eyes popped, he turned around and vanished back down ter basement where he lived. With the syphalitic cat- named pus. Aye, that were before global warming. One hot summer's day a year for yon poms, was all yer were given then. In the future lay unpredictable, Mediterranean like heat waves. Boot mainly? It were rain, followed by drizzle, a bit of spitting as more drizzle settled in comfortably while it decided if it wanted a proper pour down. Never mind, we could allus brew a cuppa!
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| Punk were reet dead man! |
Meanwhile down the pub on Clapham Common house band Jabba mixed African reggae and a tasty version of Bob Marley's "Roots Rock Reggae". We danced, drank pints, mine Guinness and lime and we could walk home, rain, hail or snow and once all three on same walk. On one magical night in late December, after Jabba finished and empty pint pots were being swept oop and punters pushed oot inta night, it felt almost warm as a few snowflakes sifted around oos as we started on our walk home. Like Stan Webb opening a slow blues riff it built oop, then it thickened, falling Roy Buchanan like blistering our heads in a flurry of notes and settling on our hair and shoulders as we misted the air with our laughter. Until it was as if there were nowt between sky and ground boot a swirl of stinging, wet whiteness. That settled, drifted, built oop until it lay deep across the grime of the scuffed South London streets, hiding them under a cover of intense blue-white snow. All the more alarming for the stillness it created - traffic were stopped. People came out of their hooses and stood looking bemused, oop at sky and then the whiteness all around them. Fairy tale, frozen trees, sparkling with ice light. London cats, miserable at the best of times, padded by even more miserably as if on burnt paws, having ter poot oop with yet more further indignity. We walked and crunched, squeaking through drifts of white powder that covered the every day dirt - it was mysterious, enchanting and short lived. We stayed out till the milkmen started delivering their frozen pints. Grand! London, so still, so clear and for one night pure, quiet and beautiful. Until we had one great big bloody snow ball fight ootside oor hoose between the Basques an' everyone else. The Basques won as they always did. Next day were all slush, ice and filth. London returned. And the trains didn't run leaving the buses ter skid aboot like big red turtles on the black iced roads.
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| Me in 1978 - selfie in pencil |
UB40 were the Brum hum. Live building atmospherics of dub and slow groove. Tom Robinson was glad to be gay, then and stridently political. Kevin Coyne was seriously weird but interesting live partnered with Dagmar Krause, shades of Nico from Velvet Underground. Graham Parker in bad taste denim cowboy shirts had a thing about his doctor. Wilco probably needed to see a doctor and played his guitar like it had been strung with barbed wire. Eyes popping as he punk-duck walked the stage incendiary guitar notes like molten embers oot of a Sheffield blast furnace. Lol bloody Coxhill remained a lunatic with reeds and a dead eyed stare second to none. Backing us through an Oval Theatre version of Moby Dick. It were like having yer maths teacher at big school watch yer every move from behind. Or the Lurch - a particularly vicious woodwork teacher who favoured corporal punishment delivered by steel rule. U2, this group of Irish wannabes came to the Lyceum and supported the Attractions or was it Talking Heads? Elvis Costello, Buddy Holly on amphetamines and aircraft fuel, pumped it up with astonishingly brutal guitar and spitty, snarled lyrics over a tight, loud three piece. But the support band? Bozo - who later changed his name to Bono were boot a shada of what he would become and the Edge were still learning his trade. Who knew Irish punk bands could be so, well, polite. Knowingly after show we said this U2, fresh oot of Ireland, were too nice to go anywhere. Tha's the last yer'l hear of thems we predicted! Aye, its grand being smug and right about musical trends stuff yer knows all aboot!
Then me anthem. Ship Building by Robert Wyatt (I know, I know he stoles if off Elvis Holly an the Contractions). Boot it wor our Robert's song like! Was it worth it Thatcher? A new bicycle on me birthday. Id been there, got that, been done like a roast dinner and was, courtesy of Maggie aboot ter be unemployed. Later "Nothing Can Stop us" became me bed time listening. The modernist poem of Peter Blackman's poem "Stalingrad", the nasal intonation of "At Last I am Free", the cover of "Strange Fruit". Mr Wyatt has allus been worth a listen. Socialist ter his hairy core!
Then there were Art Pepper at the 'Tribute To Charley Parker' Festival Hall. A blues jazz meld delivered by an astonishing saxophonist virtuoso. "Thank You Blues" still oop there with in the jazz all-time great pieces. Then I read his autobiography and thought he were a right arse. Boot the music, his music then...It were a whole night of jazz delivered with thems with a love of it for the love of it. Stars of the old jazz firmament still plying their trade alongside competent jazz hobbyists, those whose day job was counting beans or pulling fangs and lugs. They relaxed by bringing oot a bit of brass and jamming with their heroes in new York clubs and dives. For one night interlinked peers of free jam. Magic. One Miles Davis dropped an LP on the turntable, "In A Silent Way" tscch, recorded in 1969? So I missed it first time around. I were too busy watching Hawkwind.
There were also Virtuosi di Roma trilling and scraping out the Four Seasons in lush landscapes of strings twanging like underwear falling gently ter the ground. And one Yehudi Menuhin who used this thing called a violin and bow ter tear apart the Festival Hall. This despite him saying his fingers were not as agile as they were. Boot ter me they looked like the business, snapping an fretting out scalding notes like he were a lead guitarist in a heavy metal band. See, I had soom grown-up taste in me music listening repertoire. Haway!
Tina Turner's dancing ripped the tits out of the Hammersmith Palais. Ms Turner and her mooch younger, three singer backing group all in tight sequinned dresses, with heels up ter their bums (Tina included - boost a slighter bigger frock size and taller heels). Tina were like mother duck leading out the pack until she started ter strut her stuff and then the baby threesome had to sweat to keep up with mama Turner. The pay! Jesue it were the riders of the apocalypse high on aviation fuel. We were oop on the chairs dancing. Bob Dylan played in an aircraft hanger in Earls Court. From where we sat, he were the size of an ant and the music distorted, boot he seemed to enjoy hisself. Everyone else were trying ter work oot what song were it being put through a grinder of distorted bounce and echo. I think in the distance I heard two riders approaching and Mr Dylan began ter whine. Anita someone (wot me like disco! Nae! Niver!) rang my bell as I turned a one hit quirky record inta a strip routine for me street theatre show. Allus the geordie fer taking off me kit like. Still didna get me laid even though I kept me jocks on. Soom council ordinance aboot not exposing yer dick in pooblic without a licence. Aye and performing a spiv show in the carpark of a housing estate in South London and yon kiddies, aboot five, started hurling bricks at oos because in the middle of fire eating, we wouldn't set ourselves on fire! Bairns eh!
"Five Nights of Bleeding" Lynton Kwesi Johnson from "Dread, Beat and BloodI still loved one Bob Marley and were sad I missed his live shows each time he passed through. Although it were Natty Dread I kept retoorning to. There were other songs like "Running Away" on Kaya while not mainstream were heart tuggers. "Yer moost have done summat wrong" crooned Robert Nestor. That I had. I were heading back down the track of poor relationship choices. Unable ter tell lust and love apart. Being a shit ter good women while feeling sorry for us self when I were treated ter the same. Aye, it took me awhile ter wurk oot tha I were not a gift ter womenfolk. And them I fancied were not going ter be good fer me soul, and would just end in more bad poetry!
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| Linton the man |
But it were the Blues Clubs and dub, through sound systems at places like Notting Hill Gate and Brixton, which were for me the sound of the seventies ending. Big banks of shuddering speakers. Fattest bass lines destroying planet ears with reverb. I were kicked oot of a basement club for being 'dandruff'. Aye they were being kind. No love lost when yer were being picked on joost fer being black. The clubs were theirs. And I were trying ter pick oop Delores, who giggled and whispered in me ear tha if she bedded me - I would not survive. First her because she was A WOMAN (said with breath hotter than the scorchiest of desert winds). Then because her brothers would have ter reduce me ter pink an white streaked boot polish. Me girl friend as in friend girl, a Rasta cackled and wet herself ter think that I thought ah were within cooee with the delectable Delores. Did I not know she had a boyfriend, who were a GANGSTER! As in did serious harm ter folk he did not like? That I did not, nor did the lovely Delores let on that were so. And ter kick hope further inta touch, England's dreamers elected one Margaret Thatcher to lead Britain inta a future of greed, selfishness, privitisation of welfare state, selling off of our assets and fer most an introductory course ter austerity. No future joost disaster. Aye, it hurt to hear working class folk saying they voted for her. She were going ter give them back pride and jobs! Weel, within months a lot of oos were outta wurk and I was behind the bar in a pub trying ter pay the rent on casual hours and bosses who decided how mooch they were going ter pay yer at end of night. While sucking in second hand fag air and coming home reeking like an ashtray.
"Stand Down Margaret" pleaded the Beat- not a chance! Only a sour puss real poet with Dennis Bovel as reggae blistering back-up could sum oop the shite ter come. "Madness! Madness! Tight on the heads of the rebels; the bitterness errupts like a hot-blast, broke glass;" Lynton live was massive. His words with a scald that burned doon ter yer roots. Building on the frustration evident in places like Brixton, War on the streets were yet ter come. Boot coppers were dooing all they could to bring it on and black kids bearing the brunt of it. We were not in love with these times, despair increasingly becoming our pillow as we tried ter hang on.
Thatcher cut through community and took aim at the Greater London Council. Almost overnight there were closures of community centres, theatres, and council services. Protest didn't even dent her ambition. Music were shell shocked. The fooking Police fused punk with reggae and the message in a bottle were tha' new wave and agitprop were as good as washed up and beached. Enter stage left, frilly shirts, the New Romantics and too much synthesiser and moody video pieces for TV. A backdrop of world weary fancy clever electro pop, some good, some bad some left over from when Roxy Music provided sound track ter the death knell of the sixties with pomp/cock rock. We sank beneath the waves of England's brief moment of dreaming. Vienna? I'd rather scrape me knackers with a hard toothbrush.
Then with a brand new girlfriend ahh attended eight hours of posh pantomime at Covent Garden - one half of the Ring Cycle. By sum chap called Wagner. Aye, I got that opera could be fer the masses. Boot yer bum gets numb in the cheap seats when being endlessly trilled at by folk with cow horns on their head (aye they really did!). The smell of grease, paint and dry ice and folk watching, folk who know every note and fart and who scowl at you when yer laugh in the wrong places. Valkyries and Widow Twanky? Where's the difference?
John Lennon was murdered. I printed a teeshirt "Lennon's not dead, he's just shot through." He would have appreciated it. I loved the man, he were a big part of me growing up musical education. A diety? No fooking way! He were spite and northern working class lad with a brain. Allus worth a listen. Funny. Boot, Beatle fans were not amused, amongst the candle-lit vigils, none were taking stock of the man's acidic humour. They wanted me arse on a plate...spliced and sliced, it were now St John of Liverpool.
March 1981, I packed me twelve inch reggae collection an caught a plane to America for a stop off before going back ter New Zealand, to follow yet another poor relationship choice. She classically trained chorister and doctoral student who introduced me to Wagner but who liked reggae and the Cure of seventeen seconds fame. Me her piece of rough, knowing, had she not found me a job I could not have saved enough to get back to New Zealand before losing my residency there. I owed her, although the price was not one I reckoned on. Where is mystic meg when you need her? I were listening ter Sound's Judgement. Boot the penny did not drop. She deserved better than oos. Joost as I left London, a friend, well meaning, gave me a tape of Orchestral Manoeuvres in the Dark which apart from Nola Gay, was all driving synth and the popping sounds reminding me of Thatcher's celebration of a job well done ! The destruction of social fabric being replaced with a big nowt. I missed Joy Division rising up out of the Manchester rain.
Seattle was spawning good coffee shops. A girl, who was a close friend said stay, but having seen Thatcher - America looked like the end product of what were ter come. Homogenous globalisation, consumerism and middle of the road, safe, self interested, comfortable, self promoting music produced and delivered by good old boys. Somewhere oot in mists of America were the likes of Snakefinger, the Residents, boot what I saw, were Viet vets going quietly and not so quietly over the edge on public transport and kids caught oop on the appearance of making oot, rather than diving inta the messy reality of life. Boot I thanked my friend, she were grand, a guitar player in her own right. Folksy, whimsically and stunningly beautiful on inside and outside. What could I offer her? Nowt mooch. I'd committed ter a crap relationship. My cowardice. I were all broken strings, attitude, a sense of betrayal that Thatcher had stolen my future and if I did not return ter New Zealand, I would lose my residency there. Again, New Zealand was as far away from England as I could go. Sadly, I never saw my friend again but I hope her life gave her the love and kindness she deserved.
From "Black Wa Da Da" Burning Spear to "New England"- William Bragg esquire
In New Zealand after four years away, I had micro hair, red cord drainpipes, tight tee shirts and big Doc Marten boots. I was mistaken for a skinhead, threatened with a baseball bat by King Cobra - a Samoan street gang in Ponsonby, and opened a second hand bookshop. I was still ear deep in dub and the fine snaking, skanking sounds that had come out of Jamaica since 1977. Burning Spear. The Upsetter (King Perry). And the molten gold of Jah Lion's Colombia Colly. Or from the UK a clutch of Pablo Gadd records. And there was more monster dub and resonating bass deep sounds than the proverbial belfry on Notre Dame to be found in late seventies reggae. Thank goodness for a joker on campus radio called Campbell with his reggae show kicking off listening with August Pablo's "Up Warrika Hill." Mournful, moving, the death call of a mighty wave crashing on a distant shore already receding inta my past. I clung ter Mr Campbell like a Geordie sailor shipwrecked in an unforgiving sea of crap music. The dub of Burning Spear on endless repeat Black Wa Da Da and Social Living. Winston Rodney the blessed!
New Zealand home grown music was alas, still on a slow burn of American slow groove - Eagles etc. Pink Flamingos and DD Smash. Again me knackers needed a good polish to dull the disappointment of a night out in a Devonport watching Graham Brazier mix new wave with pub rock and delivered with the personality of a spiteful toddler. Boot for Antipodeans, summat worked in his ganderings. They danced, thought he was sexy - I would rather have shagged me bath mat and probably did as sex remained a sad and rare visitor ter the shore between me legs. Being in a committed relationship with no sex should have told us summat. I were too thick ter get it. I thought it were joost the mature adult thing ter do, ter sit it oot. She'd come ter her senses, and I would be transformed inter the considerate lover. Yeah right! As the Tui add might have said.
The Cure and Lou Reed came and went. The Cure giving us seventeen seconds and a lot of surprisingly good atmospheric guitar thrash. Reed whiney, demanding his money before he would play and playing a short set of not very much, other than utter disdain. JJ Cale was a colossus of understatement playing despite arthritic hands. Rocking along at half chug we all went for the ride and felt better for it. Roy Harper guitar maestro and troubadour in a small theatre off Queen Street drowning out a core of Led Zeppelin fans with guitar playing which was white noise welded with contempt. A virtuoso in a half filled theatre.
New Order, or what was left of Joy Division, at the Powerstation with the bass up so loud, people were chundering in the bogs. Their twat at the music desk sneering at the mayhem of folk puking when asked ter drop the decibels. The Pogues, Shane McGowan drunk boot rest of band made oop fer it with Punkabilly folk that were danceable, except fer some girl whacking folk in face with her long thick braid as she twirled. It made sense then that it were only a steady staple of folk passing through who were already 'big' in the other world that kept me going. Until I watched this doco... there was this runt with a big nose an' slightly out of tune guitar with a speaker attached to his back pack were roaming around New York-intermidently strumming a few chords, singing but mostly engaging bystanders in debate about politics and socialism. The barking Barking Bard. It was a start of a love affair that lasted as long as some marriages. We were reconciled at the Enmore, Sydney in 2015. I shall write a seperate column worthy of the Bragg-meister. One day. Perhaps.
"At the Bottom" The Clean and "Needles and Plastic" Doublehappys
In 1981, the Tour, Black Power, boot a south Island invasion had begun. Enter King Knox, Tall Dwarfs, The Clean, Sneaky Feelings, Verlaines, The Stones and the Bilders. Yes, an there were Bats and the Chills. Boot in Auckland - other than the wonderful Dread Beat and Blood and the Blams, there was still endless versions of substandard pub rock loved by aficionados boot which I found mildly depressing. Hello Sailor, the Dudes, Pink friggin Flamingoes. So it were a pleasure ter see syrup pop exploding with the appearance of Flying Nun. Grunge fun and mayhem. Walking into the Powerstation (then at the top of Queen Street) one night to watch an "upcoming Brit band' rumoured to be touring with New Order or UB40. It was Urbs or the Bilders or Bill Direen. "Girl at Night" and the plaintive "I Thought I Knew You" It was more of a Christchurch meets Dunedin sound. Seamless, unique, powerful, dark and edgy spluttering, guitar driven angst, adult rock. Mr Knox wrapped us oop in toilet rolls and filmed summat in stills that were like animation with real folk. Who says Nowt Ever Happens?
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| A pox on the house of Knox and Bathgate |
I moved to Dunedin solo, which was a bit like Aberdeen without the oil or fish but just as many Scottish accents. The Clean never certain who or when a song finished tended to improvise and find a different lift and surge. And end point, somewhere near the bottom, or as if attacked by slugs.
Many of the early Flying Nunners imploded except for the remarkable Mr Knox, both solo, cartoons and then with the very nice and normal Alec Bathgate (except when he had a guitar in his hands) as Tall Dwarfs. Or morphed into a more edgy wave of incoming fret board merchants led by David Kilgour and of which the loss of the talented 21 year old Wayne Elsey, guitarist extraordinaire (The Stones (yeah he replaced Ron Wood) and Doublehappys) was huge. Aye, back in Aukland celebrating a memorable afternoon in the Rising Sun on K Road, face down on the table in a pool of beer with Chills playing "Pink Frost". John Cooper Clarke slithered into town all pout, glare and hair, a Mancunian spider snarl and sneer with staccato delivery of poetry. "Keith Joseph smiled and a baby died." Stumbling into Mark E Smith and Chris Knox at a party behaving like two bad uncles. Totally wired. Boot a pair of smug prats all the same feeding off being cruel ter the hangers on. Aye brilliant that Chris Knox boot at times an arse, I were sad when his creativity were felled by a stroke.
Back in Auckland there were blues legends such as Hattie Jaques, Rick Bryant's Jive Bombers, always worth a viewing. Herbs kept reggae smouldering with Polynesian threads. John Cale performed solo (piano, guitar, intensity and lungs) at the Gluepot. Kiwi Animal put out a strange but engaging album. And then vanished. Odd balls like Fetus Productions live art installation and drum machine with grey film sequences. I drank too much alcohol. I passed out too often. I decided I needed to become a counsellor. I had the cred, I was seriously fooked oop. What was there not ter pass on? Oot the way ah'm a train wreck, let oos help man!
Live, at the Auckland Town Hall I saw what moost have been one of Roy Buchanan's last shows. Me review read herhmmm:
"It were a memorable concert for a number of reasons. The majority of the audience were members from two rival Maori gangs. They had agreed before the gig to honour Roy by not wearing their patches and there would be no violence. The venue, a very traditional Antipodean town hall building with two levels packed with brown muscled men, women and boys dressed in leather from head to toe, some with dreads, others bald as coots with scarred skulls and knuckles, tatts - accompanied by their wild and often toothless wives, girlfriends and made up - for the big event - their mums. A lot of weed or electric puha was being incinerated an' the air was a blue thickened haze. The anxious ushers spent a lot of time being air traffic control with their torches asking the gentlemen to please sit down and not smoke in the auditorium. Mr Buchanan had a reputation for being the best unknown guitar player. Well people, the 'boys' at this concert knew his every song. They greeted each one like a long lost friend and roared along, thrash dancing to the Hendrix covers, air guitaring in a frenzy of ecstasy. Although Roy, and his very young band (average age seven), looked a bit bemused by the crowd and the pantomime dry ice like blue acrid haze rolling in waves across the stage. But Roy, he was enveloped in and knew this crowd loved him. And in connection to the sea of love, the adulation inspired him to cut loose delivering an incredible night of guitar genius. Soaring, screeching, staccato solos that smoked the brick dust out of the old town hall."
Thirty years later it is still in my DNA - the sea of tattooed Maori faces and sweaty arms pumping, pushed up to the front of the stage giving Roy Buchanan the acclaim he rightly deserved! Play Hendrix - that he did and then some scorching Buchanan to top it off. The Messiah will come again? Blurry hell, he were right on that stage and everyone who saw it were touched by the humble genius of the little man with the electric guitars, lit up, drawling in his understated voice. "Hey Joe, where you going with that guitar in your hand..." Joost magic!
And one afternoon, the sun was shining, I was looking for summat low key like Sade or Suzanne Vega to be the new mellow or some henna to make me pubes turn red (it were a nineties thing) and instead picked up a piece of vinyl by the Warrumpi Band and discovered "My Island Home". ...and I met and fell in love with a budding psychologist, blond, petite, completely mad, fiery, a volcano ter live with and ruthless when it came ter speaking her mind. Music? Polish, oxyacetylene torch ballads and the ability ter fall asleep listening ter Led Zeppelin III at ear blistering decibels and wake oop and throw summat at you if yer toorned it off before it finished. It were fantastic for a time, boot were never going ter end well and didn't, boot not before a marriage accompanied by Satie's Gynopodies tinkled oot on piano by her friend, followed by a wild party and a year later divorce. Theses were sad times only made bearable by Eek A Mouse and the tail end of Jamaica Dub.
Dread, Beat and Blood helped ease the pain on angst squeezing me knackers inta dry doost.
Then I tripped inta another rebound relationship, thinking it were true love and parts were. I were also diagnosed with hepatitis C an' ten years of me life were spent trying ter return ter planet earth from cobwebs and inability ter listen to owt louder than a wind chime on a still day. Music plummeted ter ground, breaking through branches, twigs and leaf like a fat pigeon on steroids. I were trapped but did not know it. Rap were passin' me by waving middle finger oop ter the sick honky.
"The Cello Suites Inspired by Bach" Yo - Yo Ma and "Symphony No. 3" Henryk Gorecki
1989 I were in stasis when rap came and went and went on wenting. I said I would not mention the nineties. This was not a happy time in me life of appreciating music or finding new stuff. But I painted the entire interior of a two storied house slowly while listening to Mr Ma pluck his throbbing Bach influenced strings. Enuf said. It moved me deeply then as I moved me brush stroke back and forth. Mr Ma still moves me today. It moved me seeing him perform the same at Christchurch Town Hall in October 2019, solo. and I mean solo, boost him and his cello on stage.
Mr Gorecki's Symphony No 3 came with a documentary that being more labile than normal, I bawled through like a bairn. His description of being a schoolboy and walking along a path in Auschwitz made from crushed human bones. The mindless legacy of the Holocaust. It made me understand minimalism but of thems that seemed ter feed the brooding and injured soul in its decade of stasis it were Mr Goreki, Aarvo Part and John Taverner that survived intact in me collection in those most bleak of times, pulled oot fer the occasional listen. Although I did me best to stay oop with Mr Ma and Kronos Quartet with the beautiful Thomas Tallis 'Spem in Alium'. Mr Ma is consistently worthy but Kronos sometimes has me twisting me undies inta a knot of trying ter keep oop with their orchestrations of the obscure.
Bruce Springsteen decided he would produce a romantic, laid back set of ballads 'Walk Like A Man". Man! I were already on me knees but the sublime"Valentines Day" Yer drive a big fancy car...a rusting Toyota station wagon ter be precise, known affectionately as the lemon. One hand on the wheel...and I was howling like a bairn because tonight I miss my home. "Its Saturday night..." mabbe in Ashbury Park boot for me, I were looky her be awake past 6.30pm. Saturday night Bruce? yer were having a laugh. Boot them songs are still jewels of stories about being a man. Ten years where getting oop in morning were an achievement. Boot when I look back I did well ter stay alive and switch on yon stereo and try ter listen to summat along the way.So there are survivors from me electronic gulag period -boot not too many. Enough to be said most of what I bought and listened to then has been turfed. Did I mention Enya? Aaaarrrggggggjhhhh - turf. Christy Moore...nice man, boot turf, turf and turf. Exceptions: a Jah Wobble track with Pharaoh Sanders. Return ter somewhere or other...Croatan, near Blyth I believe...
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| Aye, she drove me crazy, a daughter's role in life |
Of course amongst the survivors stayed Fine Young Cannibals "She drives me Crazy". And their cover of "Ever Fallen in Love With..." and the torching, dance video that went with it. Happy memories. Me sprat outgrowing oos an with a brain the size of a Hendrix solo in full flight. Aye, I were left in slipstream like a lolly wrapper on A1 ootside Toon.
Boot in the grey, drab swirling mess of me life, following three lots of treatment, each worse than the last, I was cured or at least in remission. It were like me brain came back ter me and not every breath were a sigh. A friend said here, have a tape of sum witchy-poo music. Portishead took a hold of me...bursting the bubble. Woken by Beth Gibbons spine tingling drawly voice of a little girl lost inside a very large glass with layers of reverb and some fine guitar reminiscent of Horslips from Mr Utley, the walking drum beat on "Roads". And what were all these samples? Eee, Mr Hayes, I remember him! "Oh can anybody see..." Me miss! I can hear again. I were soaring back oop like kite over Gateshead. Then they had ter end the platter with "Glory Box". Plodding inter the mysterious lands "So tired, of playing, with this bow and area...gim me a reason ter be...a woomaaan" Grand! man! If it could get any better. Mr Utley morphs "Spirit in the Sky"- without any Jesus bits. Then bangering in stage left came Cornershop and 'Brimful of Asha', on the forty-five - everybody needs a bosom for a pillow" - what is there not to love! Norwegian Wood - or Norwegian Lukri out Beatling the fab four in a worn out psychedelic remix. C&W "Good to be Back on the Road Again - "putting anchors down, I'll have another one then I'll be moving on..make way for a lady. Just bliss. Massive Attack, connecting me back ter dub, reggae and spookiness, that when the dry ice clouds opened oop, enter in a grating stanza of bitten off mumbles...Tricky.
Stage left exit hepatitis C pursued by a flock of CD shaped frisbees.
Summat called roots, Aotearoa roots were knocking at me door...and who the hell were this geezer called John Coltrane?
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| I were oop an ready fer another crack at owt tha were not easy listen' |
* Fast forward ter Sydney 2018 and one of the best live concerts, all the better fer being unexpected. Steel Pulse at the Enmore.
