Birthday - #Oktoberfest #1 - A Beer and A Cigarette - Terraplane

Last night I got my first Facebook birthday greeting from my friend Keith who moved to the Antipodes nearly twenty five years back although I got my first card on Saturday from my daughter Juliet, plus a phone call from my dad last night. I've not yet gone on to Facebook yet so no doubt there will be the odd greeting. In case you are wondering this is my 62nd birthday.

During the night it's been pouring down and about five am there was a very loud big vehicle that woke me up but didn't manage to see what it was.

I've slightly changed my walking targets , which are a rolling million steps every three months which works out at 340,000 steps a month or 11K a day. My new target is just something to aim for but to try and hit 400K steps a month but I will only hold myself to the 340K. The weather this morning is not conducive to walking.

I was thinking of for October having my own #Oktoberfest with the criteria being something to drink, but not necessarily alcoholic. I have my first two lined up, the first one being "A Beer and A Cigarette" by Terraplane from the Stiff collection "The Akron Compilation" (with it's scratch and sniff cover) which for years I thought was called "The Akron Complication" which to my knowledge has still never been issued digitally. I was introduced to it with The Bok went for a meeting with Rabid Records to sort out our first single (which never happened as they folded but the demos are here on Soundcloud) and the guy said it was the most outrageous song he had ever heard.

It's great and I used it to soundtrack what I thought would be the final night at The Free Trade in 2010 but the financial crash of 2008 meant that the flats never got built and the Free Trade is still going with it;s amazing views down the Tyne.

ALso I am going for another record number of posts in a year and if I do 40 this month (my record is 54 last August ) then I only need 17 before the end of the year, but we shall see how this goes because I may not want to post every day, but we shall see. At least this is a start.

Enjoy your wet Tuesday.

Anyone For Tennis?

This is nothing about tennis, which is a game I find generally tedious (I can't play or hit a return serve), although Wheelchair Tennis actually does command my total respect, I cannot play being reasonably fully mobil and these girls and guys do it from a wheelchair, how absolutely amazing is that.

The Bok had a song called "Tennis" but I don't have a recording of that, maybe I should try and recreate it, but this is just about the Cream song which is one of those Cream songs that is like nothing else Cream did and I like it and actually think it's good. There are others like "Pressed Rat and Warthog"(the "B" side) that are just plain silly, and I suppose lots of bands tried and keep trying completely different sounds to the point of taking on alter egos to either be able to play more intimate gigs aor see if it's just their name that sells.

"Anyone For Tennis" is the Theme from the film "The Savage Seven" (a biker film lost in time but available on Amazon.com) and was recorded during the "Wheels of Fire" sessions and released as a single and on the album soundtrack. It was written by Eric Clapton and someone called Martin Sharp

I don't know why I wanted to post this, possibly because I saw a "Best of Cream" (which doesn't feature the single) in Beyond Vinyl but it's Saturday , it grey , and it's the first day of the Football season, so all is reasonably good.

I keep looking at posts I've done and often notice spelling and grammatical mistakes and more and more I think I am being wrongly autocorrected rather than mistyping, or maybe I am just being paranoid. The latest was a post which had "their" instead of "there". Now given that I am a bit of a grammar stickler myself that is not a mistake I think I would make but autocorrect might.

I know it's short (this post) but see what you think .

Before Bed

This is post 1977. There can only be one song, can't there. Is this going to be the shortest post I've ever done?

Well not quite because this was my first ever blog post, and it was fairly short maybe about fifty words (I can't be bothered to count but you can do it yourself.

1977 was the year that punk really got underway. but it started way before that. The Bok sent demos to John Peel , Stiff Records and Rabid Records in Manchester. John Peel said we were primitive , Stiff sent a rejection letter , but Rabid wanted us. It was only when Rabid asked which studio we had recorded it that it dawned on us the reason for Peel's reaction. We'd never seen a studio and recorded direct to 2 track cassette. The single was decided, people stopped talking to be because the bassist said we were going to be on Top of The Pops , then Rabid went bust and the band split.

We formed on a Tuesday and played our first gig on the following Saturday, and it that time we managed to write and learn songs for something like a one hour set, including "Waiting For The Man" , "Gloria", "The Passenger" , "Egyptian Reggae" , "Shot By Both Sides" and the demos on the link above.

One of my favourite guitarists was Ollie Halsall who recommended learning with heavy gauge strings and playing with light gauge strings. What this didn't take into account was the fact that in the heat of the gig they went out of tune almost immediately. After a gig one guy said he was impressed with my in song tuning.

Anyway 1977 was the year of The Roxy , any number of punk bands , many still around now, and off course "1977" by The Clash , the "B" side of "White Riot".

"No Elvis, Beatles or Rolling Stones

 In 1977"

Absolutely brilliant and The rolling Stones are still going but The Clash aren't , two trully great bands

Here Comes Your Man

For some reason The Pixies song "Here Comes Your Man" has been going through my head. I don't know why. It is a great song by a great band and also makes me think of The Velevt Undergoud's "Waiting For The Man" which we played if the Marsall Law / Bok first gig. The demos we senmt to John Peel at the time are here though he rejecte dthem for being too primitive, though when we were taken up by Rabid Records they asked us which studio we had used. We hadn't, they were recorded live to a two track cassette player - which could explain John Peel's rejection.

The gig happened on a Saturday, on the Monday mty friend Andy Marshall was the only one left in Marsall Law , between Tuesday and Friday we wrote, learned and found a pick up drummer and played our first gig. We had to ditch the pick up drummer as either he or we didn't have a clue but we finished the gig and it all went down well.

I took a tip from Ollie Halsall on learning to play , to practice with heavy gauge strings and play live with light gauge strings which was great in practice but in small venues caused my guitar to go out of tune as soon as I touched it, though a couple of people said they were impressed my my retuning as I played technique, little did they know......

Listening To John Niven

On Sunday 6Music broadcast a show by one of my favourite authers John Niven. The series is called Paperback Writers and has a writer talking for an hour about music that has shaped him and influenced him.  If you want to catch it (before September 2018) you can listen to it here.

Now I'd missed it on Sunday, but then remembered there;s a BBC Radio iPlayer app that you can download onto your phone, and thought "Aha" . As well as music and podcasts I can listen to radio shows on demand on my phone.

So that was my listening for my walk to work this morning. He opened with Creedence Clearwater Revival's "Up Around The Bend" a song I loved since I first heard that razor sharp opening riff, although the lead guitar parts seem remarkably muted compared to the main riff.

He played a lot of great music including Television's "See No Evil" which I tried to emulate in my song "Communication" for The Bok  (and failed totally), and actually pointed out a very dark concept of Middle of The Road's "Chirpy Chirpy Cheep Cheep" that I hadn't countenanced before about losing your mother as a child.

He also talked about and played a song from The Wishing Tree, the band he was a member of in his early twenties who, from the song he played, well worth a listen.

Basically this has given me another option for listening on my walks, which is all very good.

Demos

Today on my walk into work I decided to listen to the demos for the first Velvet Underground album from their "Peel Slowly And See" box set. I was surprised to see there are only six songs which I thought would be a waste of a CD , but the opener "Venus In Furs" last fifteen minutes with four takes. on acoustic guitar possibly sung by John Cale.

"Prominent Men" is almost Woody Guthrie-esque and "Heroin" is another acoustic demo reminded me how I'd introduce my new songs to bands I was playing with.

The problem with The Velvet Underground is that often some of their finshed product sounds like demo quality, but they are so vibrant that they are essential listening ranging from noise terrorism to gentle love songs to gothic menace. I still find the bass drum sound on "All Tomorrow's Parties" awesome and the menacing violin / cello backing Lou Reed's living dead vocals on "Venus in Furs" nerve tingling.

It's almost strage that the demos seem to be an almost country and western group, but they are completely transformed for the debut album release. I never saw "Waiting For The Man" as a country song.

While initially the album did not sell, it showed bands what could be done without going high tech. I've always gone for originality over technical ability and the ideal is both, but technical ability without originalty leaves me cold, Toto were prime examples of that scenario, which I think Boston and Rush were two examples of technique and originality.

The thing is the Velvet Underground showed YOU could do it. "Waiting For The Man" was one of the staples of The Bok's live set and we possibly sounded less together than the Velvet Underground but I love the main riff which was also appropriated for The Jam's "In The City" and The Sex Pistols' "Holidays In The Sun".

So that's what I've been listening to this morning and maybe will spin th evinyl tonight.

Enlightenment Is Music You Need A Flashlight To Hear

Not one of mine, but a line from one of the poem sequences in Bob Dylan's "Tarantula". It caught my eye and my mind went into so overdrive trying to figure out what he meant by that and trying to rationalise how it fitted into reality and failed miserably, but, again, that's the point orf art and poetry and writing and music and theatre and film , it's meant to stimulate you and make your mind work and think. I haven't a clue what it means, or maybe I have an inkling but it means that my mind is switched on and functioning.

The weekend Newcastle hosts The Late Shows which is a series of events running into the night and I think I will slip out for an hour or two on Saturday. There is the Vinyl Guru's collaboration "Never Mind The Punk 45" with Gallagher and Turner which reminds me very much of a wonderful book celebrating the same DIY art work which I think it's call Punk:45 but it's downstairs and there are a few such books which are wonderful to browse through (I still prefer real books to ebooks even though I do possess a Kindle), but enjoy seeing the artwork. Punk had a wonderful DIY style which has been subjugated in the digital age due to the ease and simplicity and effectiveness of digital image processing.

So I could actually include a video of The Bok's "Happy Birthday" which Rabid Records were going to put out as a single before they went bust. When we spoke to them they asked us which studio we had used. We said "Studio?". It was recorded direct to cassette. The video I did is here, and the rest of the demos are on Soundcloud here.

Anyway I will leave you with The Damned's "New Rose" which was the first punk record I bought. Mye and my mate Dave Topping, who was guest drummer with The Bok, ordered it from a record shop in Chorley and his was missing a chip from the edge, so effectively unplayable , but mine was OK, as he lived a lot nearer the shop than me he just waited for a replacement to be ordered.

It's Friday, the weekend is here, and the sun is shining. Have a great day everyone.

Na Pyg Chi Pig

Not Chi Pig

When I walk up a certaing road I see a car on a drive and the registration plate reads NA62 PYG. I have been convinced this was the name of a band that John Peel played and featured on the Stiff compilation "The Akron Complication". though Amazon list it as "The Akron Compilation".

This is one of a clutch of Stiff release that , to my knowledge, have never been released digitally. The album also features a scratch and sniff cover that releases the smell of rubber when you scratch it.

It turns out the band was not Na Pig (or Na Pyg), it was Chi Pig, and when The Bok went sign up with Rabid Records they raved about this album and played it a couple of times as we plotted world domination (which by the way never happened). The album featured some great. bands and is worth tracking down if you have any interest in music .

It shows how your memory can be fooled when an image supercedes the actuall reality, well certainly mine can be.

Anyway Chi Pig have a lot of great stuff on youtube here and "Miami" seems a wonderful album. This is a band I am discovering forty years after the event. "Dismal Dismissal" is playing as I finish this, but definitely a band worth investigating, but again not served well digitally just three songs on Amazon here.

The thing is there is more music in the world that we can think of listening to in our lives, and there is always something new (or old) to discover.

Right I'm going to make my tea now.

Busy Doing Nothing - What Goes On In Your Mind?

The intention was to really not do much this weekend , but I've ended up to doing work , shopping, making beds , and am going to write another two posts on my music blog here due to the fact that I've been to two excellent gigs this week, one for the opening of The Old Fox in Felling with Rigid Digits and the other for a Nick Cave tribute gig and the Tyneside Bar and cafe featuring my friends Jon Lee, Sheena Revolta and Bethany Elen Coyle, though obviously I don't need to say anything about them here otherwise I'd be repeating myself, although repeating yourself is a good way of filling up the page , that's if you you feel you have to fill up the page, which I don't as I'm not being paid for this, just doing it ofr myself and maybe for. your entertainment.

VU

It's funny how when you maybe don't want to do much, you sometimes find lots of things to do, like I set up a Facebook  Your One Song page to see what peoples' favourite song will be if they only had a choice of one! I would hate to only be able to listen to a single song but, the thought of minimalising the Desert Island Discs concept appealed to me. It's like while I have the utmost respect for guitarists who can play complex tunes in complex times with complex solos, I have have a great deal of respect for the one note guitar solos and single (ok maybe two or three) chord songs because that enables ANYBODY to get up and play a song.



Examples are "I'm A Hog For You Baby" by The Coasters, "Tommy Gun" and "White Riot" by The Clash , "Roadrunner" by Jonathan Richman and "Gloria" by Them - there's an instant set list for any band.

Anyway the music I've choset for this post post is "What Goes On" by The Velvet Underground, which The Bok covered for their first gig in the seventies, the band formed on Wednesday, first gig on the Saturday and we'd written half a dozen songs by then!

Anyway I've got a lot of stuff done so far, two more blog posts to go and then I may sit down and watch some catch up TV. Hope you are having a brilliant weekend .

Living In The Past

It's funny how we have a hankering for old things and things to remain as they were / are, when a lot of the time the new stuff is actually far better than the old stuff. I have a Samsung Galaxy Note phone , but I want an emulator on on it so I can play the games I enjoyed on my Amstrad CPC computer. I downloaded an emulator but it just crashes my phone . C'est la vie.

I bought an alarm clock that emulates Tetris , and believe me you dont snooze with it , that alarm has to be switched OFF.

A lot of the music I have on my players id the stuff of my teenage years such as Hawkwind and Pink Floyd and Jethro Tull. Having said that I am a hige fan of convenience. and use both the ridiculous 48 GB capacity , plus Deezer and Youtube to allow me to play what I want when I want.

There have been recent things about returns to cassette tape even . Cassette was brilliant in its time , but was fragile , didnt last , and I would never dream of using a cassette again except to extract so rare music or something. The good part is that you have to do it in real time , which is a lot more personal that knocking together a Spotify or Grooveshark playlist , but those platforms  enable you to share music and Grooveshark does let you upload stuff that it doesnt have. Any way heres some old Bok Demo's from the mid 70s.

The Bok , Stiff , Rabid and a little John Peel

In 1976 Andy Marshall had a gig to fulfil with his band Marshall Law. Unfortunately the band left before the gig took place so after a a phone call or two The Bok (singular of Box) was formed . Simon Clinic (aka Tony Eyre) original vocalist left before the first rehearsal, but in true punk fashion we wrote songs for the gig as well as a few covers to spread out the set. All gigs were in and around Preston in carious clubs , pubs and halls. The band consisted:

• Andy Marshall - Guitar - Vox - Songs
• Mike Singleton - Guitar - Vox - Songs
• The Hippy Mark Lester - Bass
• any drummer we could find but mainly Dave Topping

Songs were chosen for lack of chords and ease of playing and obvious influences were Velvet Underground , The Damned , Jonathan Richman. Covers we did included:

• Waiting For The Man
• Psycho Killer
• Rue Courier (Roadrunner - in French)
• Shot By Both Sides
• The Passenger
• Gloria
• Egyptian Reggae

Songs titles I remember apart for the demo list were:

• Sick of Beer
• Tennis
• Rant and Rave
• Accident
• Magic Eye

We had a gig in the basement of a pub in Preston. I had been using Ollie Halsall's trick of practising with heavy guage strings and playing with light gauge strings. This meant you could play very bendy sols and chords , but also in the hot sweaty confines of the pub basement  the guitar needed continuous retuning as I played . Guy came up to me at the end and send he loved my inplay tuning , didnt have the heart to tell him it wasnt planned. The DJ didnt like us and when we launched into Magazine's "Shot By Both Sides" he started playing the record as loud as he could, The crowd took umbrage and trashed his decks - nice show of appreciation!  Anyway .......
 

........Basically the idea was to choose some songs record them and despatch to people who mattered in music. John Peel tahanked us but said we were too primitive! Stiff Records apologised that they sent us a pre printed rejection letter , but Rabid Records of Manchester wanted to record us and put out a double "A" side single of "Mystery Band" / "Happy Birthday" , with an accompanying video involving pies , bikes and aqualungs!! . We went to Rabid's headquarters in Manchester but everyone had buggered ogff to the CBS launch of John Cooper-Clarke's Disguise In Love. Graham Fellows aka Jilted John aka John Shuttleworth dropped for rehearsals for the Jilted John album . He reckoned we looked like students. Also Martin Hannett did a lot of work with Rabid artists!!

An unexpected side effect was that a lot of girls stopped talking to me because they thought we were going to be on Top of the Pops!! Never could work that one out , the only time being in a band had an adverse social effect!!

After cups of tea and making plans the guy asked us what studio we had used . Studio? We hadn't a clue but the reason for John Peel's dismissal may have become apparent. Anyway Rabid records went bust fairly quickly after that and the band sort of didnt go any further though things could have been different.....

Below are some salvaged demos - enjoy: