tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-238736322024-03-12T18:46:48.320-07:00Abie's Place!Abie's Place!
A blog from music journalist and biographer Ian Abrahams. What I've being doing, what I'm planning to do. Extracts, previously published work and didn't quite make publication writings, stuff that takes my fancy... Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.comBlogger41125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-91230939988059363252019-05-20T11:35:00.001-07:002019-05-20T11:36:39.367-07:00Crawfish & Caviar - Anthony Thistlethwaite (R2 RnR Magazine 2013)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>Here's another blast from the past, an interview with former Waterboys saxophonist Anthony 'Anto' Thistlethwaite that I compiled for R2/RnR magazine back in 2013 when Anto was preparing to rejoin The Waterboys for a tour celebrating the </i>Fisherman's Blues<i> album, around then, I guess, the time of the expanded </i>Fisherman's Box<i> album release. </i></div>
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<i>I've met Anthony a few times, firstly when I was researching for my </i>Strange Boat<i> book on The Waterboys, and later at various Saw Doctors gigs. I note, with some sadness, my mention in the interview about the 'temporary' hiatus of the Saw Doctors, which largely, despite a few ad-hoc get together shows, still goes on to this day. I really miss them. Haven't talked to, or seen, Anto in a few years now - I think the last time we talked was on the telephone for a piece I was writing for </i>Vive Le Rock<i> about the great Nikki Sudden, who Anto had played with on various of Nikki's LPs - but I always found him to be one of the nicest, most genuine, people that I've ever had the pleasure of interviewing. </i></div>
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<i>I'm always amazed how often he turns up on records that I love, such as those by Nikki Sudden, including ones that I've been discovering for the first time, as was the case with Nikki's 'lost' album with Simon Carmody and Johnny Fean, </i>The Last Bandits In The World, <i>for last year's RSD,</i> <i>which came expanded with recordings featuring Anthony and fellow Mike Scott comrades Steve Wickham and Max 'Lizard' Edie</i>, <i>or tunes that I remember from way back when... Bruce Foxton's first solo records, Robyn Hitchcock's </i>Groovy Decay. <i>He's on The Psychedelic Furs </i>Book of Days <i>album and </i>Working With Fire & Steel <i>by China Crisis... among many others.</i></div>
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<i>Looking back at this piece, actually it's rather unfocused (my fault entirely) but I think it does at least describe some of the mercurial adventures that Anto has enjoyed along his way. He'd kindly allowed me to reprint a piece of his own in </i>Strange Boat <i>which described his year busking the streets of Paris in the early 80s, pre-Waterboys, and I guess if you've read that, this interview is at least a bit of a companion piece, even if I didn't quite manage to do this gently understated but fascinating and hugely talented musician the proper justice his wide-ranging work deserves.</i></div>
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A stalwart of the original Waterboys, Anthony Thistlethwaite was Mike Scott’s constant collaborator from The Red & The Black, their pre-Waterboys band, through to the Celtic summer of <i>Room To Roam</i>. Twice-over he’s been Davy Carton and Leo Moran’s staunchest ally in The Saw Doctors, including an almost unbroken fourteen-year run as their bassist, though he’s best known for being the man who Mike Scott describes in his autobiography as ‘The Human Saxophone’. </div>
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With the ‘Docs on temporary hiatus and ‘Anto’ about to re-join The Waterboys for series of shows to follow a seven-disc anthology of the legendary <i>Fisherman’s Blues</i> sessions, he’s a number of exciting projects developing. I phone him at his Irish home to chat about these, and about his solo albums, which he’s made digitally available via Facebook. Knowing him as I do, though, I’m not surprised the first thing he wants to talk about is his unabashed delight at someone else’s good fortune.</div>
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“Mick Taylor has been playing with The Rolling Stones recently and I find that very heartening,” he tells me. He’s a huge admirer of their former guitarist. “He played on my solo albums and was very good to me. I always loved the Stones when he was with them. I look on YouTube and see the numbers he’s played on in the last few weeks and it’s great to see him enjoying himself. In his youth he was very demure on stage. These days he seems full of beans, playing very well. I’m delighted for him.”</div>
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I’d already planned to ask about their work together. “In 1982 I’d just started playing with Mike, but I thought I’d do some recording on my own in a studio down by Westbourne Grove. The studio engineer said, ‘You know, we had Mick Taylor in here a couple of weeks back’. We found the invoice for Mick’s session… with his address on it. I plucked up courage and knocked on his door, explaining I was recording in the studio that he’d been using and wondered if he’d play guitar for me. I was really chancing my arm. He was very nice but said that he’d have to hear what I was working on. Some kind of quality control, I’d guess! But I went back a few days later with a cassette, played him the track, and he came down and it was brilliant! I went around a few times, took my sax and he’d have a go on it, and we made friends, in a small way. Then he got a call from Dylan’s manager to work on what became <i>Infidels</i> and I didn’t see him for a few years.</div>
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“Things may not have worked out as he might have hoped, but he’s always had an amazing talent. I’d have some tracks for him to play on, and it was like he wouldn’t have to learn the chords… there was one song where he played the whole thing on the first pass and he’d never heard it before, it was just innate.”</div>
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Mick’s contribution to Anthony’s solo records includes his 1997 <i>Crawfish & Caviar</i> album, noted as being principally recorded in St Petersburg and Louisiana and being by turn Russian folk and Cajun-tinged. Before encountering Mike Scott, Thistlethwaite had spent a weekend that became a year busking Parisian streets; at the Café Mazet on the Rue St. André des Arts you contacted him by telephoning for ‘Tony-Le-saxo’. But these further-flung recordings were intriguing.</div>
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“I’d been on the road with The Saw Doctors for three years and felt like a break. I intended going to Prague and disappearing in some mysterious way, but when I got there it didn’t really fit the bill! So I caught this train that went up through the Ukraine and ended-up in St Petersburg. There I met the bassist from a group called DDT, the Russian equivalent of Bruce Springsteen and the E-Street Band, a big band with an intelligent and charismatic vocalist. I was telling him what I’d been doing in the West and he said ‘You’ll have to rehearse with us’. I went down with my sax and mandolin and ended-up travelling around darkest Russia with this bunch of lunatics, visiting places I’d never imagined and flying in aeroplanes with chickens in the cabins! Just what the doctor ordered.”</div>
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While in St Petersburg he received contact from Boris Grebenshchikov, “a sort of Russian Bob Dylan who heard I was in town. Apprehensively I arranged to meet him, someone of such stature. He was sitting in his flat and in the middle was a coffee table with a bottle of single malt Scotch and two glasses. ‘Welcome, Anthony. We will drink the whisky. We will talk’. I didn’t normally drink whisky… but we finished the bottle and by then were quite good friends! So I ended up playing with his band Aquarium. It meant I was playing with two of the biggest bands in Russia, so I thought I’d better do some recording. I got the rhythm section from one, some players from the other and went and recorded.” </div>
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If that explained the album’s Russian element, the Louisiana part came from happy coincidences that led Anto into finding a hitherto unknown family branch. Back in ’87 he’d played on ‘Ship Of Fools’, the first World Party record. “There’s a town called Opelousas, near Lafayette in the Cajun country, with a large contingent of Thistlethwaites. Now, ‘Ship Of Fools’ was a hit in the States and one of the Thistlethwaites there saw my name on the sleeve and sent a message. ‘Hello, I live in Louisiana, I’m a musician, and we have the same name’. A couple of years later I was on a US tour with The Waterboys, so he came down and we got talking. He said, ‘Have you heard of this book by Bernard Thistlethwaite?’ That was my grandfather who’d spent years researching the family, wrote a book and gave copies to his relatives. I’ve a copy here. The fact that he had a copy in Opelousas meant that we absolutely were related! Sharon [Shannon] was with The Waterboys at the time and she wrote this instrumental track, which is on her first album, called ‘Anto’s Cajun Cousins’ with a Cajun lilt to it! They seemed to know everybody around the heart of Cajun and Zydeco music, its black music equivalent. They’d known Clifton Chenier, who was a Zydeco accordion player. His wife was their nanny when they were kids. I was really thrilled to meet these people, such as Christine Balfa, from Balfa Toujours. After my adventure in Russia I had half an album and what I needed to do was to go to Louisiana and make the other half. I spent three months in Opelousas, inviting everyone I could down to the studio and just had a great time, however ridiculous it sounds now!”</div>
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Current endeavours are closer to home, with Leo Moran and others of the Irish music scene in The Cabin Collective, who’ve already had their first television appearance, on Ireland’s The Late Late Show, performing their debut single, ‘Lines Are Fading’, again with Leo on an acoustic tour of America in September, and then from late November through December with Mike Scott and Waterboys mainstay Steve Wickham where they’ll not just be playing songs from <i>Fisherman’s Blues</i>, but generally rekindling their three-way magic. </div>
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Talking about The Cabin Collective first – their single is a totally infectious romp – Anto explains: “Outside of Tuam, where Leo lives, there’s this fellow called Larry, and his lady, who live in this Scandinavian log house. He’s had a scene going on there with a recording set-up, and people have made albums in the cabin. Keith Mullins’ band, who supported The Saw Doctors, recorded there. So we were friends with them, and with Noelie McDonald who’d also supported us. They’d been congregating at the cabin and, being less busy than normal this year, I got invited to go down there with Leo and Rickie [O’Neill, Saw Doctors drummer], so we joined forces. Now there’s a band with two drummers, three singer-songwriters, or four if you want to count me, I play sax and a bit of mandolin, and there are nine of us involved. We got a chance to play on national Irish TV before we’d even played a gig!”</div>
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That musical comradeship which permeates through Ireland’s West Coast is also reflected in his re-embarking with The Waterboys. He’s played occasionally with Mike Scott since parting company when Scott moved to America in 1990, including a couple of shows with Scott and Wickham last year in Spiddal, home to later <i>Fisherman’s Blues</i> sessions. “We did a charity gig for a dear friend of ours there: Mike, Steve and myself. There was so much demand that we did two shows in one day. We do still have that wonderful chemistry.”</div>
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There’s real excitement in the three of them working together again. “We’ve also got Trevor Hutchinson [<i>Fisherman’s Blue</i>s bassist] who plays in Lunasa, a great Irish trad band, and I’ll be playing sax and mandolin. The music from that era was very free-flowing. I think Mike wants to capture that spontaneity.” </div>
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Before then comes Anto and Leo’s American road trip. It’s different to the things they’ve done before, a stripped-down adventure, the two of them driving across the States in a hire car. “Leo will be singing songs familiar to Saw Doctors fans; I might sing a few of my songs, maybe a Dylan or something so obscure that I don’t know who wrote it. We’ll have fun. It’s quite refreshing, doing something without relying on pounding drums and 100 decibels. I’ll play mandolin, sax, harmonica, might play guitar… not really sure! It’s an unknown quantity. There’s something wonderfully delicate about playing acoustic music without a rhythm section because every note counts and you can have great effect with some tiny thing. I toured with Donovan once and that was a joy because you could hear everything and everything I did mattered.”</div>
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So while on a practical level the current halt to The Saw Doctors activity has left a gap, it’s clear that this versatile and engaging musician has good friends who’ll take him off on tangents, just as his Russian and Louisiana travels did way back when. Here’s to them all.</div>
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<a href="https://soundcloud.com/anthonythistlethwaite" target="_blank">Anthony Thistlethwaite on Soundcloud</a></div>
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Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-22069058164756139682019-04-14T03:59:00.000-07:002019-04-14T03:59:52.123-07:00John Oates - Travelling the Mississippi Mile (R2 RnR Magazine, 2011)<div style="text-align: justify;">
<i>This is one of a couple of Daryl Hall & John Oates related pieces that I wrote for </i><a href="http://www.rock-n-reel.co.uk/" target="_blank">RnR</a><i> magazine a few years back, this one an interview with John Oates around the time of the release of his blues and roots solo album,</i> Mississippi Mile. <i>I spoke to him on the phone to his Colorado home and found him approachable and friendly, and happy to chat Hall & Oates as well as talk about his work away from the duo. </i></div>
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<i>I've liked his records with Hall ever since first hearing them around the time of </i>Private Eyes <i>and 'I Can't Go For That'</i> <i>and owned most of their catalogue on vinyl back in the day, bar their debut </i>Whole Oats <i>LP, which to this day I've still never heard. For such a major act, their catalogue has been rather neglected over the years with much of their 70s output having limited availability in recent times - my current, less extensive than when I owned the vinyl back in the 1980s, collection, is I suspect a typical hodge-podge: </i>Private Eyes, H20, Voices <i>and</i> Abandoned Luncheonette <i>I have as jewel-case CDs</i>, <i>my copy of </i>Along The Red Ledge<i>, probably my favourite record of theirs, is a Japanese pressing that I acquired from Tower Records in Piccadilly (sigh) in the early 90s, and I found a cardboard sleeve copy of </i>X-Static<i> in a local record shop a while ago, broken down from a vanilla-release replica sleeves set I suspect. </i>Ooh Yeah! <i>which I have a soft spot for, I've owned since its original release. Others in the catalogue seem elusive to find in any format. Must be a catalogue ripe for reappraisal and reissue, surely. </i></div>
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<i>The chance to interview John Oates was too good to miss, one of those opportunities that keep me wanting to write about music - the chance to chat with someone whose work I've enjoyed. Here it is:</i></div>
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There’s a moment on the Daryl Hall and John Oates album <i>Voices</i> where they declare themselves ‘still hung up on the Duke of Earl’. It reflects of one of the wide range of influences displayed in their brand of Philly-soul-pop. I’m dialing in to Colorado to talk to John Oates and chew over some other influences, to discuss his own particular reference points and how he’s revisited them in the gritty, rootsy, Americana of his latest solo album, <i>Mississippi Mile</i>. It’s his own interpretation of classic songs that he’s loved, a couple of new entries into his own canon, and one glance backwards at a Hall and Oates classic.</div>
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He looks at the songs he chose for this project as being “everything that mattered to me as a musician before I met Daryl and we started working together. This was the stuff that turned me on to music and gave me the dream of pursuing a career in music. It’s the artists, the songs, the style; from folk-blues to r’n’b and rock‘n’roll. There were many other influences, but I had to be realistic and touch on those that meant the most.” </div>
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The resulting album was released mid-2011 in the US; a full UK and European distribution is set for January 2012. It’s a captivating wander through his musical starting points and Oates is an enthusiastic and friendly interviewee who seems to genuinely relish talking about his long career. I ask him about the way this project evolved and how he approached re-imagining songs that clearly meant a lot to him. “It’s a very delicate balance to treat a classic song in a way where you honour the original but at the same time try and make it your own” he concedes. “The key to the album was the song ‘All Shook Up’. I was sitting in my home studio, playing the guitar in this sort of delta blues riff and for some reason, I have no idea why, began to sing ‘All Shook Up’ over it, imposing the original melody and words over this minor-key thing. I loved it. Elvis was an icon and an inspiration to me.”</div>
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Oates then began to consider others in his list of favourite ‘old’ songs. “Maybe I could do [the same] to others. I began to look at Chuck Berry and at Curtis Mayfield, Mississippi John Hurt and Doc Watson, these important artists. Their songs had become my personal repertoire over, and I hate to say it [laughs], the last fifty years. If I’m with a group of people, just jamming or picking, I play these songs. ‘Make Me A Pallet On Your Floor’, or ‘It’s All Right’ by Curtis Mayfield, or a Chuck Berry song. I discovered that I could re-imagine them without, in my personal opinion, messing with the original.”</div>
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I enjoy the way he approaches this. “I had to define what a song is. A song is lyrics and melody. I think the chord changes and the arrangement are up for grabs, the approach, the attitude, the energy. They don’t constitute the song, the song is the lyrics and the melody and in that regard I kept those things pretty much intact. It was the chord changes, the feel and the groove that I messed with.”</div>
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Many years ago Daryl and John contributed a cover of ‘Can’t Help Falling In Love’ to the classic NME mix-album <i>The Last Temptation Of Elvis.</i> I remind him of this and recall how my own ‘indie-kid’ friends were blown away with, to them, the compilation’s unexpected highlight. “We have a great respect for other songwriters and that translates into our ability to interpret. You want to interpret something so that you’re comfortable you’ve made your mark on it, but honouring the original is very important.”</div>
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I’m interested in the part these songs played in his own development as a musician, though he concedes that his first single, ‘I Need Your Love’, recorded in 1966, was more representative of what was happening in Philadelphia back then, a Philadelphia r’n’b that he was a part of. “But I made a joke today that back then I had two distinct musical personalities. I would be wearing a denim work shirt and singing in a coffee house, doing traditional Appalachian ballads and delta blues and the next night I’d be wearing a Sharkskin suit and playing r’n’b with a band. To this day I’m doing exactly the same thing! I’ll play with Daryl and we do our version of r’n’b pop and the next night I’ll be playing with [<i>Mississippi Mile</i> collaborators] Sam Bush and Jerry Douglas in some little place in Nashville. Nothing’s really changed!”</div>
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Recognising that duality in his work I wonder whether, despite often being quoted as the most successful duo in pop history, he sees Daryl Hall and John Oates as a duo or as a band, since over the years they’ve gathered around them a recurring set of collaborators who seem to give them a ‘band’ ethos. “We’ve always been a band,” he considers. “We perceive ourselves as being two individuals working together. Our company is called ‘Two-Headed Monster’ because that is exactly what we are not. We always recognised ourselves as individuals with the freedom to do our own thing. That’s the premise of our relationship and probably the reason we were able to stay together. But I agree with you, Ian, the co-writers, Sara Allen, Janna Allen, were very important, and the sound of the band in the ‘80s, T-Bone [Wolk], G. E. Smith, Mickey Curry and Charlie [De Chant] defined those pop songs... and vice-versa. Those songs were a vehicle for the band to do what it did.”</div>
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I’m also delighted to find him in agreement when I mention my contribution to R2’s ‘It Started With A Disc’ feature, a write-up of my enthusiasm for their 1978 LP <i>Along The Red Ledge</i>. “It’s one of my favourites as well.” It leads me to ask how he now perceives the body of work that he and Daryl have established, since their catalogue together is diverse in tone and texture from the folk of their initial recordings, the progressive <i>War Babies</i> with Todd Rundgren at the helm, and their most commercially successful years with <i>Private Eyes</i> and <i>H2O</i>. Which albums does he think really nailed their vision?</div>
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“I’ve thought about this a lot; there are very specific albums that represent an important change or moment. The first is <i>Abandoned Luncheonette</i>; the next would be <i>Along The Red Ledge</i>, the next <i>Voices</i> because that was when we started producing ourselves. Then I’d say <i>Big Bam Boom</i> because it’s so experimental and is our transition from the analogue to digital world. That’s it, right there. Those set the course for the rest of our lives.” </div>
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Returning to his latest work I ask him how he chose the one Hall and Oates cover included, ‘You Make My Dreams Come True’. “It’s the album’s oddball song. We recorded the album in a very old school style. All the band members were sitting in a circle looking at each other. Eighty percent of the vocals are what I sang while we were cutting the tracks. There was one guitar solo that we didn’t like and replaced with a harmonica but other than that there are no real overdubs. What happened, it was one of those happy accidents. Between takes I’d been fooling around with this kind of Texas swing feel and I sang ‘You Make My Dreams Come True’ and everyone laughed and said, ‘That’s cool’, so we just cut it and everyone loved it. It’s a bit of an aberration, though now I come to think of it, it is a song of my youth!”</div>
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What John Oates achieved, in his youth and across his very full career is now being repaid in respect from younger musicians so perhaps in that sense he’s come full circle in reflecting his own loves. “Believe it or not, it’s now one of my more fertile musical periods. The success of Hall and Oates has given me the freedom to do other things, and I love it. </div>
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“A lot of younger artists feel like they took inspiration from what we accomplished, and they reach out to me. Sometimes they think it’s going to be this nostalgic thing and yet I come bringing a completely different energy. I’ve been playing with jam bands and I’ve been playing with lots of great bluegrass musicians and this is all part of my background that few people know about. They think I was born with a moustache and playing ‘Maneater’ but I had an entire musical life before that!“</div>
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Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-72415095249327672072017-01-16T10:00:00.001-08:002019-04-11T11:32:58.662-07:00Sonic Assassins - Print Edition<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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The print edition of <em>Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins</em> is now live for ordering! Amazon US have it immediately available... Amazon UK are taking orders but awaiting the print files from Createspace, which can take up to five days, so should be fulfilling orders by the weekending 21st January. I had a quick look at some Amazon Europe sites and they are either taking orders for imminent fulfilment, or are ready to go with orders. </div>
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Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-64224613985394732622016-11-23T01:27:00.001-08:002016-11-23T01:27:57.121-08:00Sonic Assassins - Digital Publication Day!<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
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It’s digital publication day for <i>Hawkwind: Sonic Assassins</i>! (Why do I choose 23rd November… just like I did for <i>Festivalized</i> last year? Hmm… let me think… answers in the comments section please). The book is now circa 150,000 words, revised top-to-bottom, updated to 2016’s excellent <i>The Machine Stops</i> album and has new interviews and research. </div>
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Q: OK, so where’s the physical edition?</div>
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A: Coming, honest! The thing is, this update has been on the cards and being picked at for a long time, and without a mainstream publisher handling it, there’s never been a deadline to get it finished, and writers will tell you, nothing concentrates our minds like a deadline. So, to give myself a deadline I decided to do the eBook version first, since I could pre-list with Amazon and Smashwords and create myself a deadline to finish by. Next, I’ll turn my attention to the paperback edition.</div>
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Q: I’m a reviewer / blogger /podcaster / radio host and would like to chat about the book or receive a promo copy. How do I contact you?</div>
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A: I want to hear from you! Email me through my Profile page here, tweet me at Abrahams_Ian, or contact me on my FB:</div>
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www.facebook.com/ianabrahams.musicjournalist/</div>
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Q: What’s new?</div>
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A: There’s a lot of stuff through the text which is new. Since the book originally appeared in 2004 I’ve had the chance to interview various people who could add their bits and pieces to the story, such as Mick Farren, who I talked to for <i>Festivalized</i> about eighteen months before he died, and who told me, among other things, about writing ‘Lost Johnny’ with Lemmy for <i>Hall of the Mountain Grill</i>, or Dave Robinson (of Stiff Records fame) who worked at the legendary Roundhouse gig in 1972 where ‘Silver Machine’ was culled as a single from. There’s little bits from Crisipian Mills of Kula Shaker, and Porcupine Tree’s Steven Wilson from interviews for other things where I tacked-on a Hawkwind question at the end. I got to chat to Jerry Richards, absent from the original book, and, as part of updating the story, to Mr Dibs, Niall Hone, and Matthew Wright. And I was able to chat through different elements of the original book with Dave Brock and gain additional insights and reflections from him, as well as talking about the wonderful legacy of his band.</div>
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Q: Does the digital version contain pictures?</div>
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A: Indeed it does! Many of the illustrations from the original edition – though not all – are contained within the text of the eBook. And there are new photographs both archive and up-to-date. Had a big internal debate as to what to do, whether to go for text only, include a photographic section at the end of the book, or to scatter them through the text and, as with <i>Festivalized</i> last year, I’ve gone for spreading them across the story. Huge thanks to everyone who helped with this… and I couldn’t resist the caption for P!KN!K’s great shot of the band on-stage at Crystal Palace in 1985…</div>
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Great 'Peace' Sign!</div>
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Your Author, with the writer of 'Shot Down In The Night'!!!</div>
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Steve Swindells (L), Ian Abrahams(R)</div>
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Q: What’s happened to the ‘Tracks and References’ appendices from the original?</div>
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A: Didn’t do the same thing this time around but subsumed most of the information into the main text. Someone on Amazon wrote that the original didn’t seem to comment much on the lyrics, but that was largely in the appendices, so this time it’s part of the narrative instead. But those appendices were fun and frustrating to do, very much influenced by the TV programme guides of the 80s/90s by my friends Keith Topping, Martin Day, and Paul Cornell, so I’m tweaking them and blogging them and will get around to the albums released since 2004 as part of that.</div>
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www.sonicassassins-book.blogspot.co.uk</div>
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Q: Typos! They get everywhere…</div>
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A: There will be a digital reload, with an erratum listing any corrections made. Thing is, no matter how much you proof and re-proof, they slip through. I mention a gig in Swindon a couple of months after the events of 9/11 and describe the gig as being in November 2011… I meant 2001 of course! </div>
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Q: Favourite Hawkwind album?</div>
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A: Just like Matthew Wright in the book, it’s probably <i>Astounding Sounds</i> or <i>Quark Strangeness & Charm</i>. But it could be <i>Live Seventy-Nine</i> (because that’s when I first properly heard the band, travelling with my cousin to gigs at St Austell Cornwall Coliseum) or <i>Electric Tepee</i>, or <i>Hall of the Mountain Grill</i>. Depends on the day!</div>
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Q: Are you going to shut-up about Hawkwind now this is done?</div>
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A: Nope. Sorry!</div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.co.uk/Hawkwind-Sonic-Assassins-Ian-Abrahams-ebook/dp/B01L5J4QSG/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1479891101&sr=1-1&keywords=sonic+assassins">Amazon UK Link</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Hawkwind-Sonic-Assassins-Ian-Abrahams-ebook/dp/B01L5J4QSG/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1479892635&sr=8-2&keywords=sonic+assassins">Amazon US Link</a></div>
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<a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/661481">Smashwords Link</a></div>
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Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-84112439550950364442015-11-23T05:03:00.001-08:002015-11-23T05:05:25.234-08:00Festivalized – Digital Publication Day!<p align="center"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-0CAa3ZaIMHI/VlMOmYtDSwI/AAAAAAAABQw/bngp-Zha7NI/s1600-h/festivaliZed%252520%2525281%252529%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="festivaliZed (1)" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; display: inline; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px" border="0" alt="festivaliZed (1)" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-kfQvPVUjJrQ/VlMOm_EXqAI/AAAAAAAABQ0/93YpKYd2Y2Y/festivaliZed%252520%2525281%252529_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="184" height="244"></a></p> <p align="justify">Today is the digital publication day for <em>Festivalized: Music, Politics, And Alternative Culture</em>. The print edition will be available in the next few weeks. For the moment though you can get it for your e-reader via Amazon, Smashwords, iTunes and other retailers that are serviced via Smashwords. Some links here:</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.amazon.co.uk/gp/product/B014G6X2W6?*Version*=1&*entries*=0" target="_blank">Amazon UK</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B014G6X2W6?*Version*=1&*entries*=0" target="_blank">Amazon US</a></p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://www.smashwords.com/books/view/571274" target="_blank">Smashwords</a></p> <p align="justify">If you are a reviewer / blogger who wants to cover his book we’d love to hear from you – drop me an email from my profile page and I’ll organise a download code or PDF for you.</p> Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-35700338480924097792015-06-21T09:04:00.001-07:002015-06-21T09:04:16.249-07:00Strange Boat Price Drop!<p align="justify">Looking forward to The Waterboys at Glastonbury? Price drop on the Amazon Kindle edition of 'Strange Boat - Mike Scott & The Waterboys' for the rest of June. Read it at Glasters - or anywhere else for that matter - for 1.99! Then I'll afford a hair cut!</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-oUDjLAd4TaE/VYbgfG6XP7I/AAAAAAAABG4/H32CyMxjZVA/s1600-h/CAM00049%25255B1%25255D%25255B3%25255D.jpg"><img title="CAM00049[1]" style="border-left-width: 0px; border-right-width: 0px; background-image: none; border-bottom-width: 0px; float: none; padding-top: 0px; padding-left: 0px; margin-left: auto; display: block; padding-right: 0px; border-top-width: 0px; margin-right: auto" border="0" alt="CAM00049[1]" src="http://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-RGoKX81Hhsc/VYbgfj2eJ7I/AAAAAAAABG8/47H4Kvh1KLE/CAM00049%25255B1%25255D_thumb.jpg?imgmax=800" width="244" height="184"></a></p> Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-85421492700597821702014-11-08T05:56:00.001-08:002019-04-11T11:33:51.933-07:00Strange Boat Reviews<p align="justify">There are a few reviews starting to appear for the new edition of <em>Strange Boat – Mike Scott & The Waterboys</em> (Gonzo Multimedia paperback / Lumoni Press E-book).</p> <p align="justify">Goodreads Website has a terrific review from musician and author Stephen Palmer that’s associated with the original SAF edition but is a commentary on the new edition. “In summary: a particularly well assembled biography of a fascinating musician. No fan of Mike Scott or the Waterboys, of ‘eighties music, or of the many strands of Celtic music will want to miss this entertaining book. Definitely recommended.”</p> <p align="justify"><a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1096061746?book_show_action=false&page=1" target="_blank">Strange Boat Goodreads Review Link</a></p> <p align="justify">The Rocker website doesn’t much care for Mike Scott or his music I’m afraid, but still thinks that <em>Strange Boat</em> is “still a good read… it filled an otherwise dull Monday afternoon quite comfortably.” You’ll need to scroll down to their 16th October entries to read this review.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://www.the-rocker.co.uk/" target="_blank">The Rocker Review Link</a></p> <p align="justify">At Get Ready To Rock website Jason Ritchie thinks <em>Strange Boat</em> “a comprehensive overview” and notes that Mike Scott comes across “a thoroughly nice person,” which I’m not quite sure chimes totally with his single-minded nature myself, but does conclude that “interviews with the man himself would have really provided a deeper insight into the lyrics and ways of creating music.” Which, of course, I can’t disagree with.</p> <p align="justify"><a href="http://getreadytorock.me.uk/blog/2014/10/book-review-strange-boat-mike-scott-and-the-waterboys-by-ian-abrahams/" target="_blank">Get Ready To Rock Review Link</a></p> Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-69412044217761076052014-10-04T08:13:00.001-07:002014-10-04T08:39:49.018-07:00Strange Boat New Edition - Extract<div align="justify">
Has it really been six years since I last posted on this blog? Certainly my blogging activity has been primarily on <a href="http://www.spacerockreviews.blogspot.com/" target="_blank">Spacerock Reviews</a> but still… <br />
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With a new edition of <em>Strange Boat – Mike Scott & The Waterboys</em> issued recently in print by Gonzo Multimedia and under my own Lumoni Press imprint as e-Book it seemed a good time to resurrect this blog. I’ve not even been along to see how it looked for quite some time, so I’m disappointed to see the photographs have disappeared, but relived to discover the text still live. Over the next week or so I’ll revise the links and generally update and re-establish the blog, though my review blog will continue alongside it, but to stat its refurbishment, here’s an extract from the new version of <em>Strange Boat</em>.<br />
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<a href="https://www.blogger.com/null" name="Introduction">Chapter 1: Down In Jungleland</a><br />
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Mike Scott entered the world on 14th December 1958 in Edinburgh, destined to be an only child. His mother was a college lecturer and his father a shadowy, remote figure who has been characterised as having abandoned his family, playing little part in Mike Scott’s story until becoming immortalised in Scott’s cathartic song: ‘My Dark Side’. <br />
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“The dark man of my dreams is my father, who left home when I was very young and I’ve never seen him since,” he recalled. “You know, when I picture my mother I’ve got a picture in my mind. When I try to picture my father, there’s a bit of a blank space.” He believed he had inherited his mother’s mind; from his father all he could really acknowledge was an assumed physical resemblance: “My father never stuck around long enough for me to figure out what his characteristics were.” In a stark and painful song simply entitled ‘Father’ and recorded for his band Another Pretty Face in late 1979 he agonised over this long rift. Why and where his father had gone; how there could possibly have been something more pressing or important on his time than his family. He pondered what his father’s life was like, a decade on from disappearing, whether he talked about having left behind his son. It’s a song raw with disappointment and hurt. <br />
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The dislocation and trauma this separation caused took many years to reconcile. It was something that Mike Scott took personally, as though it was his own fault. Alastair McKay of the Scotsman, a regular interviewer of Scott, delineated it as “a void,” which in turn Scott described as being “so big that I didn’t have the measure of it.” Mike carried a typical guilt complex and internalised the blame for his father’s disappearance. He felt that “it was not necessarily my fault that my parents split up, but it was my fault that my father wasn’t around. I thought, ‘Maybe I’m unlovable’.” It was a “shadow question. Never conscious, but in the background of my mind.” <br />
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On the other hand, his relationship with his mother was always close and protective. “When there was just the two of us, we were great pals,” he further explained to McKay. “Obviously I was loveable in that context. I had lots of friends, so this question, ‘Am I unlovable?’ - it was in the background, but it was only one part of my psyche.” <br />
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Norman Rodgers, of the Scottish band TV21, knew Mike and his mother during the late 70s and recalls a relationship built on parent to child encouragement, observed through many visits to their home which became an almost ‘open house’ for budding musicians. “He had a lot of support; his mother was supportive of him in a way that none of our parents were of us. They tolerated us playing music but none of them would put up with what she put up with. Mike and his mother had a quite different relationship from the way the rest of us had with our mothers, there was just the two of them and she was very supportive of what he wanted to do; stuff that the rest of us wouldn’t have got away with. Mike used to get up in the morning and he’d say that he’d play the piano and sing ‘Mother’, the John Lennon song, to work on his vocals, and he’d do that primal scream thing. My mother would have gone mental if I’d tried to do that every morning, but she just let him get on with it. The house felt like Mike’s house, it didn’t feel like her house. His bedroom would be decorated from floor to ceiling with newspaper cuttings and posters and with records and tapes everywhere so that the only thing that was identifiably hers was her own bedroom, everywhere else was just a clutter of Mike’s stuff and it was just a whole different vibe from anybody else we knew – in a good way of course. She was really tolerant; we could rehearse in the front room with a drum kit and a full PA while she’d be back in the kitchen reading books with this entire racket going on.” <br />
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There was a reel-to-reel tape that Mrs Scott had preserved, harking back to a young Mike Scott, aged eight or nine, who’d telephoned in to a live radio show to deliver perhaps his first public vocal performance. “He sang ‘Eloise’ [written by Paul Ryan and originally recorded by his brother Barry, later providing a hit for The Damned], unaccompanied, and she’d obviously heard something then that made her keep this tape.” And again, overall the sense is of someone dedicated to allowing her son to follow his interests and passions and just let them flow and see where they’d lead him. <br />
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But to Nikki Sudden, writing for <i>ZigZag</i>, he confessed how he “grew up feeling inferior. Teachers made me feel ashamed of not conforming to things, grown-ups made me ashamed of not wanting to do the expected things. And I grew up scared of religion, police, school... scared of my mother, because she expected things of me that weren’t the things I wanted to give her. The way for me to now overcome that is to prove that what I decided to do in place of all those things that were expected of me was worth doing.” <br />
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Mike Scott came from ancestors steeped in Scottish heritage. His Grandmother hailed from the Isle of Mull, a Gaelic speaker, though for her young grandson this was a simply an ambient surrounding to his own identity, as he explained: “When I was growing up, my grandmother would be listening to Gaelic on the radio. I never got any Gaelic myself because they don’t teach it in Scottish schools. But I understood it as part of my background, almost a lost part of my background.” BBC Scotland, through its Gaelic identity Radio Highland – Radio na Gaidhealtachd - had picked up the baton of Gaelic language broadcasts since 1935, though it didn’t have a dedicated service until 1979 (and continues to do so, under the banner of BBC Radio nan Gàidheal). Another time Scott noted how he’d “thought traditional Scottish music was uncool. It wasn’t until I went to live in Ireland that I got hip to Celtic music.” <br />
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The family moved to Ayr, probably as part of his mother’s career as it seems she taught at the Local College of Higher Education. Mike was twelve. He’d already absorbed some of the things that would ferment inside and brew up his world outlook and which would set him on the road to being the Mike Scott of spiritual strength and of musical diversity. He grew up surrounded by books, establishing in him a lifelong passion for the printed page and the wonders it could hold. “I had seventeen bookcases in one room which instilled in me early the value of literature and the beauty of books. I love books. Whenever I go on tour I buy so many, my case is just full of books.” He’d immersed himself in literature that resonated with religious undertones, particularly the Narnian Chronicles of C. S. Lewis, which he’d discovered at the age of seven or eight. He fell in love with the way in which Lewis could move from the mundane to the magical in tales where a simple wardrobe, or more religiously symbolic, a stable door, could provide the entry point into something more fantastical or wonderful. And he loved the romanticism of the Pauline Baynes illustrations for the books, finding them “mythological”. He would return regularly to the stories for inspiration and say how they gave him “an early sense of the divine, which has never left me.” <br />
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He found this elsewhere too, looking and thinking deeply, recognising injustice in situations and deriving a form of moral guidance from this. “As a child I always identified with the Indians in the cowboy films. Because they were right!” he told Mat Smith in <i>Melody Maker</i>. “In the films they were always portrayed as cold-blooded murders and thieves but there was something more. Something I can’t quite put into words.” He expressed no particular love of formal education. For a while he attended the independent George Heriot’s School, adjacent to Edinburgh Castle. Imposing in its own right – the school was founded in 1628 and is drenched in history – there is no indication that Scott found it a happy experience. “School? They don’t teach you what life is,” he exclaimed in an early interview with Chris Heath. “They don’t teach you that you can be what you want to be. It requires a massive shift in emphasis in society. We have a society based on having and owning. We need a society based around being and giving.” <br />
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It was around that time that Mike made a trip down the thoroughfare of Edinburgh’s Princes Street and into the record department of the Boots store to buy his first 45rpm single: ‘Last Night In Soho’ released in 1968 by Dave Dee, Dozy, Beaky, Mick and Tich. It was a pivotal experience, a starting pointing in his musical education. Journalist Hayley Bartlett related how “Everyone has to start somewhere and for Scott it was being given a guitar for his tenth birthday. Scott went on to admit that his first strumming was to the tune of Mungo Jerry’s ‘In The Summertime’.” <br />
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From there on his record buying became eclectic. “The Sixties were really a wonderful time for music. It was like a crack opened in the sky and this big light came through and everyone thought we’d got there. But we hadn’t. We had to go through the Seventies… until Johnny Rotten started spitting.” His earliest real enthusiasm was for The Beatles. “It was watching The Beatles doing ‘All You Need Is Love’ on TV that first showed me that rock music could be a transformative force,” he told Jon Wilde in <i>Uncut</i>. He particularly identified with George Harrison, perhaps in the process absorbing that wistful, melancholic spirituality that Harrison had acquired. He described George’s first solo album, <i>All Things Must Pass</i>, as being his “favourite record [ever] since I bought it in 1971. I love the big, full Phil Spector sound and that kitchen sink production. I love the songs; ‘All Things Must Pass’, ‘Awaiting On You’ and ‘Let It Down’. I love that it’s touched by Beatle Magic, the shadow of The Beatles still hanging over it.” <br />
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On 17th November 1972 he travelled to Glasgow for his first taste of a major live band, attending an Emerson, Lake and Palmer show at Green’s Playhouse, “sitting way up the back, miles from the stage,” as he recalled in a <i>Q</i> magazine questionnaire, with “Keith Emerson hopping around on his Hammond.” But what really remained imprinted upon him and so demonstrates his writer’s eye for characters and personalities was the train journey to the gig and back. “All these strange looking people with long hair and denim jackets talking about song titles... That impressed me more than the concert. I didn’t understand the music and I wasn’t even a fan.” <br />
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His musical endeavours led him to the inevitable round of school bands and finally, at fifteen, to a partnership with John Caldwell, another enthusiastic guitarist who would become Scott’s first significant musical comrade-in-arms. They formed a group – Karma – which, writing for <i>Record Collector</i>, long-time Scott aficionado Peter Anderson noted as being “a garage band inspired by Scott’s chief influences, The Beatles, David Bowie and Bob Dylan.” <br />
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“This was my first true band – we played in my living room every Saturday,” he recalled to Hayley Bartlett, also remembering another band he started which “went under two different names, White Heat and White Light. We were really into Lou Reed at the time.” But these bands and the initial association with John Caldwell were little more than signposts to the future rather than the beginnings of an out-and-out assault on the music business. Instead Scott took himself off to Edinburgh University and a degree course in Philosophy and English Literature that he never completed. He’d started at University in 1977, one of the most significant years in musical history. Instead of hearing the learned voices and their collective wisdom in the lecture halls, Scott heard the spite and bile of The Clash and of Patti Smith in the exploding storm of Punk. <br />
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“With Patti Smith, it was her sense of the transcendent that drew me in,” he told Jon Wilde. “It was like there were angels over her shoulder, and she showed that rock music should be both transcendent and extremely sexual.” To Chris Heath, in <i>Jamming</i> magazine, he expanded further, in the same breath elucidating a state of mind and a perception of the worth of rock music that could be seen as evolving into part of his own manifesto. “She knew that communication between people on as high a level as possible is one of the highest pursuits that an artist can follow. And she had a fantastic soul that was inspired by wonderful things. She recounted her dreams in songs. She lived on stage; she didn’t go and give a show, she went on and lived. And because of that she was real.” <br />
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His own involvement with Punk was, in a sense, reportage from the trenches. He was writing his own fanzines: <i>Kingdom Come</i> (taken, perhaps, from the Arthur Brown vehicle) and most notably <i>Jungleland</i>, its title deriving from the gritty, operatic closing track from Bruce Springsteen’s <i>Born To Run</i> masterpiece. In fact, Scott was finding a fascination for Springsteen that endured even though he recognised and conceded the bombastic and overwrought side of “The Boss”. In the way Springsteen evolved his multi-layered sound, Scott discovered something that resonated with his own huge musical ambitions. ‘Jungleland’, for example, was described by Springsteen biographer Christopher Sandford as “switchblade hop… it had the lot, violin, cocktail piano, the guitar solo that virtually gave Boston’s Tom Scholz his braggadocio sound, and Springsteen’s roaring vocal.” Not that Scott was uncritical when he felt that one of his heroes wasn’t producing the material that Scott felt he should be, suggesting to Nick Kelly in the early 80s that Springsteen should steer away from the blue-collar imagery and characters that he was writing and singing about. “If he started exploring the mythology of America, and tying the wisdom that can be gained from that into an exploration of what has to be done to save the Earth ecologically, he’d do it brilliantly.” Lofty ideals; Scott would have a go at that one himself. <br />
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Scott’s <i>Jungleland</i> fanzine became the focal point for his creative output in the late 1970s, giving him the opportunity to get up close with some of punk’s movers and shakers: he interviewed The Damned, The Clash and Patti Smith amongst others. “It was just a fanzine about all sorts of things, just like every other,” he recalled. “It was the stuff I liked best at the time that I wrote about, which was Television, Patti Smith and Dylan. I met [Television’s] Tom Verlaine and Patti just by hustling. The first person I met was Richard Hell when he was touring with The Clash as Richard Hell and the Voidoids.” He finally made a face-to-face encounter with his idol Patti Smith in 1978 and found her “always really good to all the kids who used to follow her around. I was just one of them.” What he saw in her was the way in which her stage persona was simply an extension of who she was and how she felt at that moment. “So much life in one person she just had to be admired,” he enthused to Nick Kelly. “She went out on stage every night and if she was in a bad mood, it was a bad gig, and if she was in a good mood it was a good gig. I think that’s quite justifiable.” <br />
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Mike’s admiration for Patti Smith was one of the mutual interests that brought him together with TV21’s Norman Rodger. “I first met Mike round about Easter time of 1978, at that time I was playing in a band in Prestwick, on the west coast of Scotland, near to Ayr where Mike was. This was a band called The Aaargh! John Caldwell, who went on to play in Another Pretty Face was in that band, along with Ally Palmer who I got TV21 together with. Mike had come along to see a couple of gigs that we’d done and we met him. John took us along to meet him in this bar in Prestwick because they’d been at school together. Mike and I hit it off pretty quickly because we had a lot in common, in terms of what we were listening to, particularly Patti Smith and Bob Dylan. Patti Smith had released <i>Easter</i> only a couple of days earlier and we were comparing notes on that. I remember once he was really pissed off because I’d seen the broadcast on <i>The Old Grey Whistle Test</i> when she’d performed ‘Horses’ and one or two songs off the album, and he’d hadn’t seen it.” <br />
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Mike’s meeting with Patti Smith was in the summer of 1978 when she appeared in Edinburgh. “I think she did a poetry reading first. Mike had written to her lots of times but had never actually met her. So he went to the poetry session with a book and records to get signed, which she did, but during the poetry reading she couldn’t remember some words and said, ‘Mike, have you got my book there so I can read it?’ He was so chuffed because she remembered his name and because she used his copy of the book to read this poem out on stage – and the appearance was bootlegged! I don’t know quite what happened between Mike and Patti Smith, right up until her <i>Wave</i> album he was still really into her but then later I mentioned Patti Smith to him and it was, ‘Don’t mention Patti Smith, I don’t want to hear about her ever again’. So I don’t know what happened between that point and three or four years further down the road.” <br />
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The final issue of <i>Jungleland</i> was published in 1980, by which time Scott was established as a musician in his own right. “I backtracked and did one extra,” he explained to Marc Issue in <i>Beat</i>. “It was a kind of personal manifesto of where I was at the time, and God I must have been a pain in the arse! It was so negative! I could hardly believe it could be so depressing to read, but then I recall I was pretty miserable in 1980.” <br />
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While he was making his first tentative literary mark, and was drifting away from his University education (Anderson, in <i>Record Collector</i>, makes note of his assertion that “I was always more interested in what Joe Strummer was saying than William Shakespeare”) he was getting involved with a few bands. Over the summer of 1978 he rehearsed with what started out as a covers band, The Bootlegs, whose members included Norman Rodger, Alan McConnell and future Another Pretty Face Scott-collaborator Ian Grieg (also known as ‘Crigg’). <br />
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“We had this intention of playing cover versions of Dylan, Patti Smith or whoever,” explains Norman Rodger. “We’d rehearsed all these songs with the intention of doing one gig and that being the end of it. After that gig the other guys wanted to keep going. I wasn’t so keen; I’d kind of lost heart with it. But we went into a studio and did a session, plugged in and played live, ran through eighteen to twenty songs over about four hours, largely cover versions but also a couple of my songs and a couple of Mike’s.” <br />
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Mike talked about this session as being undertaken under the name DNV. “DNV was a group that I had in 1978 that only ever did two shows,” he recalled. “We did one recording session, twenty-one songs in one night, and from those twenty-one we released a single, ‘Death In Venice’.” <br />
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“Some of the recordings came out as the DNV single,” says Norman Rodger. “‘Death In Venice’ and ‘Mafia’ were both from The Bootlegs recordings and then Mike subsequently remixed them and added that ‘Goodbye 1970s’ track which we hadn’t done at that point. But we’d just run through all these tracks live and it was pretty atrocious, mainly! My performance was abominable because I wasn’t into it and I was, I’m ashamed to say, quite deliberately messing it up to try and hurry it up a bit; my singing was appalling. A lot of that stuff appeared on Waterboys bootlegs; I was mortified when it came out. The idea was that it would be a bit of fun but I think at the time I was pretty broke and when the other guys wanted to chip-in, I couldn’t really afford it but felt obliged to fork out. I mean, the band was great fun and we had a fantastic summer, one of the best summers of my entire youth, really. We’d play almost every night - at Mike’s place most of those nights - but it didn’t feel right taking it seriously at the end. It was never meant to be that, it was meant to be fun. We only did two gigs, the first was all covers and the second we started dropping in our own material and I think at that point there might have been a bit of rivalry with Mike, who was always the more talented musician. There’s no doubt about that; I think everyone knew that at the time. But I think it was a bit of a fight between me getting my songs in and Mike getting his and so it changed a bit towards the end. That took the edge off it for me; it was still good fun though and I enjoyed pretty much all of it, looking back.” <br />
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There were other short associations with groups now long forgotten. Norman Rodger talks with embarrassment of a band named The Evil Turks. “That one gets buried quite a bit. It’s one that Mike doesn’t want to promote particularly, I think. We had this notion one day, it might have been just before The Bootlegs, where we were hanging out around Prestwick Airport, because there wasn’t a lot to do in that part of the world, but we were hanging around the airport, just messing around, and we had an idea that we’d form a band that day and go back, write some songs and perform them that night. The whole thing was meant to be a spoof, this spoof reggae band called The Evil Turks, which was a really unfortunate name. We went back to my house and wrote a bunch of songs – which were really the same song with different lyrics - and then went to Mike’s place, phoned all our mates up and had about thirty people round, got some beer and a few spliffs. Mike sang, I played bass and, with an echo machine, sang echoes to Mike’s vocals. I think Ally Palmer played drums and maybe Alan McConnell played second guitar. It was just a laugh but it’s gone down in the most obscure Waterboys folklore; there are tapes kicking about of that which are highly embarrassing.” <br />
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The real sense that you get of Mike Scott’s initial forays into making music with others is of someone recognisably at a higher level than those he was mixing and playing with. As fondly remembered as TV21 might be, they are remembered that way by a small clutch of aficionados, never reaching the level of Scott’s contemporary band, Another Pretty Face, let alone the heights achieved in the future with The Waterboys. “He was obviously ambitious and obviously talented,” says Rodger. “There was quite a vibrant little scene going on in Ayr but most of the bands were quite happy to play small gigs or even just rehearse. Of all the guys in that scene, Mike had the talent. A lot of us were quite ambitious but his songs had a more mature quality to them. Most of us who’d been playing with him, we’d all been listening to the same stuff, the Stones, The Who, Bob Dylan, Patti Smith and then into the punk thing, but until punk came along none of the rest of us were talented enough to aspire to music as a career. When punk arrived we felt we could play as good as The Damned, or whoever, so we started forming bands but by that point Mike had gone beyond where we were and was writing songs like ‘Death In Venice’ which was a much better song than any of the rest of us could write at that point. That was his career, he knew back then he was going to be a musician. The rest of us were quite happy to think about being musicians but we were studying or working at other jobs <i>hoping</i> to be musicians. Mike <i>knew</i> he wanted to be a musician. That was the difference.”<br />
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<br />Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-37044933483252856552008-12-28T08:40:00.000-08:002008-12-28T09:21:17.524-08:002008<div style="text-align: justify;"><br />Where did I get to in 2008, now that I look back to my final blog posting of 2007? Well, I'd have to say that in personal terms I had an enjoyable and successful year freed from the rigid structures of the 9 to 5. I did a marketing course a few weeks back where I was asked about a typical working day. Ha! The previous day I'd spent the morning working on some credit management stuff, driven to Devon in the afternoon to do a presentation to a prospective client on e-billing opportunities and been on the phone for an hour in the evening interviewing Steve Lake from anarcho-punk band Zounds. And that wasn't an untypical mix of jobs, so I can say that certainly 2008 was varied and interesting, if a little bit 'false' in the sense that I had one particular contract that provided the financial foundations for all the other stuff that I was free to do. And it was a year, as I anticipated, where I built financially for 2009. Not quite as well as I should perhaps have done but enough that I can start the year still not feeling the pressure of impending overdrafts.<br /><br />The festivals book, <span style="font-style: italic;">Festivalized</span>, has occupied a lot of writing time and still there are many potential contributors still to be interviews, and previous chats waiting to be transcribed, and it's clear that any and all spare time in January will be devoted to finishing this project to final manuscript stage, but I think both Bridget and I are very excited about the material that's been gathered and the extensive list of contributors assembled. The biography of Armand and Michaela Denis that I talked about at the end of last year, however, still remains just that... talk; it's very much the next item on the agenda and I'll be spending time in the first quarter of 2009 trying to get this one off the ground. There's two or three other possibilities as well, so I'll be pulling together a collection of proposals and once again revisiting the idea of acquiring an agent.<br /><br />I continued to write for <span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span> and <span style="font-style: italic;">Rock N Reel</span>, contributed to the <span style="font-style: italic;">Independent</span> and other places, and felt I made some modest in roads into getting my name about. The sleeve notes for <span style="font-style: italic;">Freq</span> and Cherry Red's two Hawkwind compilations were particularly pleasing jobs. The last quarter of the year was particularly intensive with a couple of projects that should see the light of day in 2009 all being well. And, as Bridget noted the other day, one of the great things about 2009 has been the wealth of great contacts with fascinating and eloquent people that we've had through the festivals book.<br /><br />2009, I want to achieve another book sale, gain more freelance work with a wider range of magazines and newspapers, and expand my writing 'subjects' so that I'm not so dependent on writing about music. On the other hand, I've plenty of CDs waiting review for the Spacerock blog and there'll be a major overhaul of that over the coming week.<br /><br />On the credit management front, this should prove a busy year if I market my self properly and I need to set-out from day one as I mean to continue, pitching for work, networking and generally getting myself noticed and contracted. One thing is for sure, in this awful business environment there is work out there for me and what I must do is chase it for all I'm worth.<br /><br />I caught up with the guys from Space Ritual at Glastonbury Assembly Rooms a few weeks ago and enjoyed again chatting with Nik Turner and Jerry Richards. And at Falmouth Princess Pavilions in early December, enjoyed meeting up for the first time since the publication of the Waterboys book with Anto Thistlethwaite who now plays with the Saw Doctors. One of life's gentlemen. A couple of days later, and I was a Truro Hall for Cornwall, relishing the opportunity to interview Jeremy from the Levellers for the festival book and, knowing him to be a big Waterboys fan, pressing a copy of <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat</span> on him! Fascinating chat about his days on the travelling scene and a great gig as well.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SVeygEP7tFI/AAAAAAAAAJE/447CpptPId4/s1600-h/IMG_0006.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 0pt 10px 10px; float: right; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SVeygEP7tFI/AAAAAAAAAJE/447CpptPId4/s320/IMG_0006.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284888951708693586" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SVeyUZV57aI/AAAAAAAAAI8/H7iV96XGFkU/s1600-h/IMG_0002.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer; width: 320px; height: 240px;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SVeyUZV57aI/AAAAAAAAAI8/H7iV96XGFkU/s320/IMG_0002.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5284888751212457378" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /><br /></div><br /><br /><div style="text-align: right;">Nik Turner, Ian Abrahams<br /><br /><div style="text-align: left;"><br /><br />Jerry Richards, Nik Turner, Bridget Wishart,<br />Ian Abrahams<br /></div><div style="text-align: left;"><br /></div></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-16891953502217426612008-12-28T08:27:00.000-08:002008-12-28T09:22:07.419-08:00Is this obvious?Here’s my pet hate at the moment. <span style="font-style: italic;">Obviously</span>. Is there a word that is so misused in current parlance that it’s practically taking on a new meaning that is diametrically opposed to its proper one? Example, the news bulletin a few nights back, credit crunch focused, as you’d expect. Poor chap on the brink of losing his job, much sympathy to him, we’ve all got a very challenging and tough 2009 to ‘look forward to’. “It’s a big worry for me,” he says, of his impending redundancy, “because <span style="font-style: italic;">obviously</span> I have three children.” Who is this obvious to? Him and his wife perhaps, his mother as well, I assume. Hardly anyone else! Cold callers, “<span style="font-style: italic;">obviously</span> our product is better / cheaper / more efficient [delete as appropriate].” It’s not obvious! It’s just not! Really gets me wound up. <span style="font-style: italic;">Obviously</span>.<br /><br />It’s a bit like that sign you so often see that starts, ‘Polite Notice’. Thank you. Write your notice politely and we’ll know it’s a ‘Polite Notice’!Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-53150299783745106192008-11-25T04:22:00.001-08:002008-11-25T04:31:25.705-08:00Hawkwind CompilationsJust received my copies of the new Atomhenge Hawkwind compilations, one three-CD set covering the years 1976-84, <span style="font-style:italic;">Spirit of the Age</span>, and another set taking the story through to 1997, <span style="font-style:italic;">The Dream Goes On</span>. Really lovely packaging on these boxed sets, lots of colour photographs in the extensive booklets on each, and detailed sleeve notes by you-know-who. Or, me, in other words!<br /><br />I've also contributed my first 'Digging for Gold' collectable piece for <span style="font-style:italic;">Record Collector </span>, a spoken-word release from the 1960s by Armand and Michaela Denis which is in the latest issue, on sale now (that would be the Christmas 2008 edition); I'm also holding forth there on the excellent BBC Sessions Magazine CD from EMI.<br /><br />And I'm to be found in the latest edition of <span style="font-style:italic;">Credit Collections & Risk</span> holding forth on a two pager on electronic debt reporting via SQL. Which is something of a change of pace, right?Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-82126614047637644252008-10-07T06:48:00.000-07:002008-10-07T23:29:19.796-07:00At the 100 Club!No, stop it, the 100 Club is not the group that I now belong to having seen another birthday come around. I'm officially half way to 90 though. Or, as my old Gran would have described it, nearly 50. Or 45 to be exact. See how I did that? I made myself sound younger by reducing in stages the possible age that I've now reached. Clever eh?<br /><br />Bits of news first then. The reissue of Robert Calvert's solo album <em>Freq</em> has now been released, containing my sleeve notes / essay. "Make 'em fun", said the label, of an album that's about the Miners' Strike of 1984. "Hmm", said I, went and looked up what Tony Benn was writing in his diary about the strike during the month Bob was recording the album and then wrote a serious essay instead. Actually, we all think the notes have come out ok! I've also just turned in the booklet notes for Cherry Red's two Hawkwind Compilations that the trade have asked for to kick start the Hawkwind back catalogue reissue - there's two three-CD sets coming, great selection of tracks and a package designed for the casual buyer to give them a flavour of things to come.<br /><br /><iframe src="http://rcm-uk.amazon.co.uk/e/cm?t=spacrevi-21&o=2&p=8&l=as1&asins=B001DJ7PGE&fc1=000000&IS2=1<1=_blank&m=amazon&lc1=0000FF&bc1=000000&bg1=FFFFFF&f=ifr" style="width:120px;height:240px;" scrolling="no" marginwidth="0" marginheight="0" frameborder="0"></iframe><br /><br />Amazon US now have pre-orders for next July's stateside release of <em>Festivalized </em>(there you go, you heard the title here first!), which is a survey of the free festival scene (music, politics and the alternative culture) by some old music hack by the name of Ian Abrahams and Bridget Wishart, former Hippy Slag, Demented Stoat and ex-Hawkwind singer of this parish. Don't know when the UK pre-orders start but you can bet that I'll be here straight away with an affiliated link. Don't miss a trick, me. US release can be ordered <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Festivalized-Music-Politics-Alternative-Culture/dp/094671908X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1223388267&sr=8-1">here</a>.<br /><br />Back to the 100 Club then! I was there a couple of fridays back to see Nik Turner's Space Ritual outfit play - a hugely enjoyable performance (as always). Get this, I was asked to sign two copies of the Hawkwind biography that some very fine fellows had brought along to get various band members to sign. How embarrassed was I? So embarrassed in fact that I dashed to Facebook asap to announce I'd been signing in the 100 Club. That's now embarrassed I was! <br /><br />I was down at the Royal Albert Hall the following night to see (for <em>Rock N Reel </em>magazine) another group that have a strong claim to the title of 'The People's Band' - The Levellers. Second time I've seen them this year (ok, strictly accurate then, second time I've ever seen them!) and I get more impressed by them the more I see and hear them. And it's only taken me twenty years to really catch on!<br /><br />Sunday morning was spent travelling down to Herne Bay from London Victoria. Ah, I'd worked it all out, had the journey plan nailed down, hour and half by train, all well and good. Time to get down there early, find a pub to watch the Grand Prix in and everything. Saturday morning, do the double check and find there's engineering works and the prospect of an hour extra in a hot and stuffy bus that, it turned out, looked as though it had been trashed at the Beanfield in 1985 and deteroriated ever since. But, at the end I get picked up from Faversham by my old Contico friend Denis, get whisked down to Herne Bay at *** miles per hour (I forgot to mention what an awful passenger I am), taken to his fantastic house, find his lovely wife has laid out food and has put the F1 race on the TV. How great is that!<br /><br />This was for the Robert Calvert memorial gig featuring 'Nik Turner & Friends' who are former Hawks Steve Swindells, Harvey Bainbridge, Alan Davey, Martin Griffin, Ron Tree, Jerry Richards and Adrian Shaw. Great day down in the Kent sunshine talking to various Hawk Yahoo List friends and acquitances from previous Hawkwind gigs including Steve from Leeds, someone who I only know (sorry!) as Rob Dreamworker's mate Tommy, Chris Purdon, Trev Hughes, Dave Roberts and others! The show itself, just fantastic really. Totally unrehearsed apparently and somewhat curtailed due to an unexpected 10pm music curfew but played with reverence to Bob's memory and in celebration of his all too short life. It's hard to pick out specifics because it was all just fab but to highlight a few things, a real lump-in-the-throat watching Adrian Shaw playing on 'Damnation Alley', Nik's unexpected flute playing on 'Psi Power', Alan's usual huge stage presence, Steve's excellent keyboards, the usual cool poise of dancer Miss Angel... just for starters. I get a quick word after the show with Ron and tell him, truthfully, that his delivery of the lyrics to 'High Rise' was "Just fucking immense, man", get two hugs from Miss Angel (ok, ok, but then I got three from Alan) and, equally truthfully, tell Jerry that I thought him 'Man of the Match' for his guitar-playing and holding things together so well. But really, fantastic job everybody and Bob's memory was really done proud.<br /><br /><a href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SOtxO1Wft4I/AAAAAAAAAF4/QweHT5IK5i4/s1600-h/Doc+ian+%26+steve.jpg"><img style="display:block; margin:0px auto 10px; text-align:center;cursor:pointer; cursor:hand;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SOtxO1Wft4I/AAAAAAAAAF4/QweHT5IK5i4/s320/Doc+ian+%26+steve.jpg" border="0" alt=""id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5254417889911355266" /></a><br /><br />Oh! And I get my picture taken with Steve Swindells - the man who wrote 'Shot Down In The Night'! How cool is that! :)Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-49594779714687034102008-09-24T11:54:00.000-07:002008-09-24T12:11:03.916-07:00Standing at the Front, Looking AwkwardA few catch-up items to report! <br /><br />I've written the sleeve notes for a reissue of the late, great, Hawkwind front-man Robert Calvert's solo album <em>Freq</em>, which is released on the Atomhenge label (through Cherry Red) on 29th September. There's a <a href="http://spacerockreviews.blogspot.com/2008/08/robert-calvert-memorial-gig.html">memorial gig</a> for Robert, commerating twenty years since his untimely demise, down in Herne Bay on Sunday 28th September and I'll be heading down to that via Space Ritual's appearance at the 100 Club this Friday, and the Levellers show at the Albert Hall the following night.<br /><br />Last week I spent a most enjoyable and interesting hour on the telephone with Tori Amos, talking principally about Image Comics' <em><a href="http://www.toriamos.com/main.html">Comic Book Tattoo</a></em>, a massive collection of sequential art (that's comics, ok?) inspired by her back catalogue. The finished interview should be turning up in <em>Rock 'N' Reel</em> towards the end of the year but in the meantime the book is highly recommended (look for my review of it in <em>Record Collector</em> soon.<br /><br />There'll be an update on the festivals book on its myspace page really soon (definitely before I head off to London) but safe to say Bridget and I have been hectic on this project and its shaping up really well. More soon on that, honest!<br /><br />And here's me (and my old mucker Joe Beer) at Rosie & The Goldbug's album launch at Truro HMV a couple of weeks back. Joe is, of course, upfront and doing the 'Lover' dance, and I'm to be spotted (about 1.30 in) loitering trying to look sensible and not doing said manouevre:<br /><br /><object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/v/KkYqNsKk8fo&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/v/KkYqNsKk8fo&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object><br /><br />Jokes aside, I bought a copy of the new album (get this, "I <em>bought</em> a copy of the new album", me, rock journo extraordinaire (with tongue firmly in cheek, honest) and absolutely love its idiosyncratic Blondie-meets-indiepop sensibilities. Get it, it's <em>wonderful</em>.Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-4253779587349836492008-08-30T09:43:00.001-07:002008-08-30T09:48:36.106-07:00Marillion You Tube Competition<div align="justify">My old mate Ian Atkins has an entry in the Marillion You Tube Competition, producing a video for their forthcoming single 'Whatever is Wrong with You'. Ian's really terrific and thought-provoking entry is <a href="http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=75FavENm9X4">here</a>, and I'd really appreciate readers giving it a click! Thanks!</div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-53584412938657355782008-07-20T09:05:00.000-07:002008-07-20T09:25:17.183-07:00All T & No G<div align="justify">How about this? I am available in translation! Me! Well, not to get too excited because it was something done specifically for a foreign-language magazine but I can at least say that my work has been translated into other languages. Or, Finnish at least. I have three pages for the cover feature of issue #34 of <a href="http://www.colossus.fi/">Colossus</a> magazine from Finland – an interview with Don Falcone of Spirits Burning, done at the request of Don and the Italian Black Widow Records label. Black Widow kindly sent me a double-LP vinyl of their new Spirits Burning release Alien Injection in return – a lovely package on heavy vinyl, really high-quality stuff. As for the interview, God knows what bits they used (Don sent me his interpretation of the parts used, I’ve not even tried to work it out!) but it’s nice to be in print in Finland anyway!</div><div align="justify"></div><p align="justify"><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225129040507441666" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SINjLa0GEgI/AAAAAAAAAFI/vcqpLbY_NEI/s200/DSCI0098.JPG" border="0" /><br /></p><div align="justify">Yesterday we departed en-family-mass for the all-day music festival at Lanhydrock, near Bodmin, a country estate maintained by the National Trust. This was the first time the boys had ever been to a music festival but they seemed keen to give it a try and we thought it would be a great experience for them. Anticipating rain we set out with some trepidation and plenty of waterproof clothes – to discover that (as someone put it from the stage) the power of positive thought had brought us sunshine instead. So I am now sunburned and sore, and frankly, pretty tired, but we’re all very happy at having such a great day.</div><p align="justify"><br /> </p><div align="justify"></div><div align="justify"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225128741880463874" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SINi6CV4AgI/AAAAAAAAAFA/kWbIau7PeyE/s200/DSCI0094.JPG" border="0" /> <p align="justify">The list of bands ranged from a Jazz orchestra, through a ten-piece Soul band (which the boys loved because they knew most of the numbers being covered) and onto indie-rock and world music. We particularly enjoyed The Hollies (I’m not going to say ‘surprisingly’ because I still think ‘The Air That I Breathe’ is a great song) and local heroes <a href="http://www.rosieandthegoldbug.com/">Rosie And The Goldbug</a>. Here I’ll note that Morgan and Niall, determined to be at the front, did not enjoy one of the Goldbugs attempting to dance with them - though their Dad enjoyed the dancers immensely and not because their gold costumes left nothing to the imagine. Honest.<br /><br /></p><div align="justify"></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225128475539314578" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SINiqiJMl5I/AAAAAAAAAE4/yiNNW8Lnp4M/s200/DSCI0093.JPG" border="0" /> <p align="justify">Though the boys flagged a bit towards the finish (fortunately not so badly that we couldn’t make it through to the wonderful firework display at the end), we really enjoyed, despite their sound problems, the headlining Dandy Warhols and especially liked the African-Blues-Rock fusion of <a href="http://www.myspace.com/justinadamsproducer">Justin Adams </a>and <a href="http://www.myspace.com/juldehcamarauk">Juldeh Camara</a>. We all watched this rather compelling set from the front of the stage and it really heartened me to see my guys getting into something different than simply guitar-based white rock music. Apparently, Adams (who plays guitar) and Camara (who is a noted player of the riti – a traditional Fulani one-stringed fiddle) recently won a ‘Crossing Cultures’ prize at the BBC World Music Awards; their blend of North and South African sounds with electric guitar rock was terrific. It’s interesting as well, because I recently interviewed Simon Williams from Earthdance (formerly Mandragora) who was telling me about the work he does in India and Africa on bring together fusions of different world music. What we saw on Saturday evening chimed with what Simon had been telling me about his work in this area.<br /><br /></p><div align="justify">I interviewed Simon as part of the Free Festivals book - a progress up-date on the book’s myspace page is long overdue, and having been out and about a bit recently on this project I’ll write that up sometime this week. I spent a day down and around Brighton a few weeks back, meeting up with Michael Dog (of Club Dog fame), Simon, and Gary from 2000DS, who still lives a full-on life parked up on a scrapyard with his bus and various motors and, on the day I visited, awaiting eviction. All three are articulate guys, passionate about the legacy of the Free Festival movement and are excellent interviewees that have all brought something valuable to the book with their commentary. </div><div align="justify"><br /></div><img id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5225129440115155378" style="DISPLAY: block; MARGIN: 0px auto 10px; CURSOR: hand; TEXT-ALIGN: center" alt="" src="http://3.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SINjird_4bI/AAAAAAAAAFQ/_izsLbQOm_4/s200/DSCI0085.JPG" border="0" /><br /><div align="justify">Oh! T & No G! Right! Went down on Friday night to the Falmouth Princess Pavilion to see Suzanne Vega – the first time I’ve seen her perform since a gig at the old St Austell Cornwall Coliseum about seventeen or eighteen years ago. Courtesy of my review of her latest album in Record Collector in 2007, I’d been on the guest list for her gig at the Queen Elizabeth Hall last year, but couldn’t make it due to business commitments. Friday’s show was just wonderful, Vega has this ability to project to each and every audience member as though he or she is the only person in the room and is enjoying a one-to-one conversation about her life. Anyway, it was just fantastic to go to this show with my old mates Joe and Raymond (anyone remember Sunday nights downstairs at the Penventon in Redruth? Those were the days!) but I was just so tired when I got back that I figured I’d have a G&T wind-down with and then go to bed. I carefully poured out a measure of Gin, went to the fridge and got out the tonic, poured it into the glass, added an ice-cube and settled down to watch a repeat of Coupling for ten minutes or so whilst I drank my G&T. </div><br /><div align="justify"><br />Turns out, what I drank was T and no G; the Gin was still sitting there in the measure come the morning. </div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-6919553110871492482008-05-26T00:54:00.000-07:002008-05-26T00:56:48.733-07:00To Do Lists and Radio Stuff<div style="text-align: justify;">What I need, really need, to do right now is to make a list. A ‘to do list’. Only it’ll be a ‘to do list’ from my current ‘to do list’ … a ‘list of lists’ as it were! You know, they say that if you want something doing, you need to ask a busy man. I’m not sure about that, I can see there are woods and trees but I’m really not sure which is which at the moment! And yes, it’s a nice problem to have!<br /><br />Years ago, when I worked for my father, one of the Monday morning tasks was to drive up to one of our bases of operation to collect invoicing data, clock cards, petty cash and stuff like that. Which I always enjoyed because it gave me the chance to stick on the radio and listen to Radio 4’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Start the Week</span>. I’d dropped out of the habit of catching that until recently when the freelance lifestyle made things a bit more flexible, and the arrival of ‘Listen Again’ and torrent sites on the Internet made catching-up with radio stuff so much easier. And the other great thing about <span style="font-style: italic;">Start the Week</span> is that nearly always there’s one or two books discussed that sound really fascinating – so my Amazon Wish-List looks incredibly impressive! I am truly an intelligent, educated, culture-vulture. Or at least appear to be…<br /><br />Other radio stuff recently on my MP3 player on long train journeys (aside from the three or four editions of <span style="font-style: italic;">Just A Minute </span>that I always load-up on if I’m travelling for any length of time):<br /><br />A documentary on the Telly Savalas narrated city profiles that used to run in the cinemas in the early 80s as support to the Hollywood blockbusters of the day. “Birmingham, it’s my kinda town” says old Kojak himself, totally sincerely without ever setting foot there in his life.<br /><br />Biographical overview of John Cooper Clarke’s punk-poet career. I remember seeing Clarke doing a spot at the St Ives Festival one year and him going into his ‘Japanese Kamikaze pilots – why did they wear crash helmets?’ gag – a week after 9/11 and the audience sitting stone-faced whilst Clarke has a horrible realisation on his face. Enjoyed this documentary but it skirted rather over his three poetry-set-to-music albums, which have always been favourites of mine. And oddly, it claimed that despite all his vinyl output he remained an unpublished poet. So why do I still regret e-baying, in a financial crisis, my copy of his <span style="font-style: italic;">Ten Years in an Open-Necked Shirt</span> volume? Apparently it never existed in the first place?<br /><br />Another career overview, this time of Mel Blanc – the voice of Bugs Bunny and others. Apparently to imitate the sound of Bugs eating carrots, Blanc ate carrots and did this because no other vegetable sounds like a carrot. Why not just use carrots in the first place? Strange…<br /><br />Which reminds me, loads of good James Bond related stuff on Radio Four in the last few days (and again today), including a dramatisation of <span style="font-style: italic;">Dr No</span> and interesting looking things on the life of Ian Fleming. Will be seeking all of those out.<br /><br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-66004398629869639582008-05-25T03:33:00.000-07:002008-05-25T03:36:42.389-07:00Random Events, Random Songs<span style="display: block;" id="formatbar_Buttons"><span class="" style="display: block;" id="formatbar_JustifyFull" title="Justify Full" onmouseover="ButtonHoverOn(this);" onmouseout="ButtonHoverOff(this);" onmouseup="" onmousedown="CheckFormatting(event);FormatbarButton('richeditorframe', this, 13);ButtonMouseDown(this);"><br /></span></span><div style="text-align: justify;">Popped up to London recently (not very rock ‘n’ roll, it was for the annual Credit Management exhibition at Olympia, where I caught up with old friends in the industry, haggled for some work and talked to magazine editors. Very productive, but, yes, not very rock ‘n’ roll). But this is a bit like my blog posting from last year about the dangers of drink and e-bay. This time it was me and sister Ruth staggering back from a couple of beers in the Fitzroy Tavern, and a pizza and wine at the Pizza Express opposite, at 11pm to catch the tube back from Oxford Circus and discovering Borders still open. Two purchases, a copy of Ian MacDonald’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Revolution in the Head</span> which I’d been meaning to read for years … and a discounted <span style="font-style: italic;">Man About The House</span> Series Five DVD. The former I can honestly justify (and tax-deduct), the later … did your parents warn you about the dangers of drink?<br /><br />Also managed to nip into Forbidden Planet and pick up the first issue of my old mate Paul Cornell’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Captain Britain & MI13</span> Marvel Comics series. I really enjoyed Paul’s Wisdom series for Marvel last year, this new series kicks off even better; I’ve read on the Net that it’s already a sell-out and going to second print. Well deserved. I caught up with Paul at Bristol’s Comics Expo earlier in the month and had an enjoyable hour in the afternoon chatting to him, his lovely wife Caroline (who I met for the first time) and new <span style="font-style: italic;">Punisher </span>artist Laurence Campbell. I also bored (I’m sure) Bryan Talbot silly with the story of how one of his original <span style="font-style: italic;">2000AD </span>pages is on my office wall, having bought it from him in Plymouth in the early 80s. Caught up with my old Doctor Who fandom friend Peter Ware for a bit of a natter as well. A really good day out.<br /><br />Last night I hit the road to Tavistock which is a really beautiful road to drive (or is after you get off the A38 and get onto the A390) if rather tight and twisty – but the Mazda loves it! Playing as special guests of Limehouse Lizzy at the Tavistock Wharf were Alan Davey’s Gunslinger who I was catching live for the first time. Very Loud. They’ve a terrific drummer, Sunil from the Meads of Asphodel who was really high in the mix and very impressive, reminded me somewhat of Dave Grohl in Nirvana days (particularly in terms of presence), and I really liked what he was doing. It struck me that although the Lizzy crowd isn’t a typical catchment audience for the sort of stuff Gunslinger play, the younger part of the crowd really got it. And there were (again, it seemed to me) quite a few Hawkwind fans who’d turned out to specifically catch Gunslinger rather than the main act, which is encouraging.<br /><br />Random tracks on the play-list recently:<br /><br />Jupiter One: ‘Mystery Man’. Never heard of these guys before, but a promo of their debut CD arrived unexpectedly on Friday (just in time for my Tavistock drive) and I’ve really been enjoying it and definitely want to find somewhere to review it. Album is self-titled.<br /><br />I See Hawks In L.A: ‘Carbon Dated Love’. I don’t normally like Country & Western at all, but this blend of country and psychedelia with a humorous twist and an environmental theme has really grabbed me. Album is <span style="font-style: italic;">Hallowed Ground</span>.<br /><br />Earthling Society: ‘The Boy with the X-Ray Eyes’. Krautrock / Acid Folk / West-Coast Psychedelia with Space-Rock elements. Album is <span style="font-style: italic;">Beauty and the Beast</span> and I’ve reviewed it <a href="http://www.spacerockreviews.blogspot.com">here</a>.<br /><br />Devotchka: ‘The Clockwise Witness’. Gypsy Punk, apparently. Heard this track on last month’s Word magazine’s cover-mount CD and immediately bought the album (<span style="font-style: italic;">A Mad and Faithful</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Telling</span>). Unfortunately, this is by far the best thing on the CD. So I’d say it was worth the price of admission on its own but then, I had the track already. But it is.<br /><br />Gunslinger: ‘Cyanide’. Doom-laden Motorhead-esque heavy rock but still manages to be catchy as hell and best played at maximum decibels. Album is <span style="font-style: italic;">Earthquake in E Minor</span>.<br /><br />Loose Acoustic Trio: ‘Pinball Wizard’. The Who interpreted by Good old boys as a jugband cover! Hilarious! Album is <span style="font-style: italic;">Sorrow Be Gone</span>.<br /><br />Stephen Emmer: ‘Passengers’. Various luminaries in spoken-word recitals set to music by Emmer. Again, this was on the May 2008 Word cover-mount. Haven’t picked up the album yet by from this track alone (recited by Lou Reed) it’s worth investigating. Album is <span style="font-style: italic;">Recitement</span>, appropriately enough.<br /><br />Jim Bob: ‘Batting the Bottle (Fighting the Flab, At War with the World)’. Hilarious resume of overweight middle-age by former Carter USM / Jamie Wednesday man from his excellent <span style="font-style: italic;">A</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Humpty Dumpty Thing</span>.<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-80009421522633019902008-04-20T09:09:00.000-07:002008-04-20T09:35:08.302-07:00Steve Gerber, London,<div style="text-align: justify;">Can't believe its been three months since I last updated this blog!<br /><br />Things have been particularly hectic with first a family trip to London for a few days and then a worrying time over last the last few weeks with Dad in hospital for a major heart operation that has seen me driving to and from Plymouth on a regular basis. He's doing fine and has arrived home now, but his discharge from hospital was a protracted affair and gave us all cause for concern even though the operation itself went well.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SAttB5TxSqI/AAAAAAAAAEI/NqQM7Cl74k8/s1600-h/DSCI0062.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/SAttB5TxSqI/AAAAAAAAAEI/NqQM7Cl74k8/s320/DSCI0062.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5191362874805668514" border="0" /></a><br /><br />London was, of course, a much happier few days - the first time the boys have been there. We went specifically for the King Tut exhibition, which was just marvellous, but also managed to cram in their first proper theatre visit (to see the excellent <span style="font-style: italic;">Wicked</span>), their long awaited visit to the Natural History Museum and many of the principle London landmarks. They were pretty blown away with their visit but it's interesting to see the different perspective they have to it. The first time I went to London I was just a little older than they are at the moment and yet the noise and traffic I found most unnerving - they took it all in their stride and weren't fazed whatsoever by it.<br /><br />In the meantime and back to business! <span style="font-style: italic;">The Independent</span> last week published my obituary of Marvel Comics writer Steve Gerber, creator of 'Howard the Duck'. I loved his run on <span style="font-style: italic;">The Defenders</span> and was really pleased to have been allowed this small summation of his career which is on-line <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/obituaries/steve-gerber-marvel-comicbook-writer-806965.html">here</a>.<br /><br />My good friend Bridget Wishart now has an on-line website promoting the release of her collaboration with Don Falcone and Spirits Burning, <a href="http://www.earthborn.org.uk/"><span style="font-style: italic;">Earth Born</span></a>. Loads of good stuff there, plenty of photos of the multitude of contributors to this excellent CD and detailed notes on the recording of each track. Well worth visiting!<br /><br />A big cheer for Alan Davey's lastest project, the revival of one of his earliest Bands, Gunslinger, and the release of their debut album <span style="font-style: italic;">Earthquake In E Minor</span>. I'll hopefully be reviewing this for one of the glossy music press in the next few weeks (and was delighted with an acknowledgement in the liner notes); the band's Myspace page can be found <a href="http://www.myspace.com/alandaveygunslinger">here</a>. Gunslinger have plenty of live dates over the next few months, I'll probably be going to their Tavistock date on 23rd May.<br /><br />Plenty of other stuff going on including the planned article on Darts, a Space Rock collectables feature which is nearly finished and the on-going Festivals book which contracts have recently been signed on and which will be appearing in the spring of 2009.<br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-91153518236714363012008-01-26T09:23:00.000-08:002008-01-26T09:29:12.289-08:00Darting About<div style="text-align: justify;">Just got back from a day in Salisbury where I met up with Griff Fender and Den Hegarty from 70s Doo-Wop band Darts for a very extensive career overview; no specific home for that one yet but it’s likely it’ll get used across a couple of magazines over the summer. Actually, had a really good time on this one; Griff and Den can talk for England and are both really engaging and enthusiastic characters. They’re completely different from one another but they have a real bond and have known each other since they were fourteen and I think on this occasion enjoyed meeting up and shooting the breeze on old times as much as I liked talking to them. Loads of good material on the formation of Darts, the pub-rock scene of the mid-70s, bringing doo-wop to the unwashed masses, dealing with racism from the Teds and the NF and other things. They were a great little band (little? Nine members?) who were perhaps grudgingly embraced by the punks and who did a lot to bring more obscure doo-wop records to the British record-buying public’s attention with their choice of covers. And it has to be said they wrote some pretty good songs themselves, to the point at which when you listen to the first couple of albums you have to stop and think which are the covers and which the newly minted material. Very under-rated, I think. A good day – pity about the cost of getting into the cathedral though, I’ll save that one for when I’ve a crisp fiver to spare and plenty of time to have a good look around.<br /><br />So it’s been a pretty hectic start to 2008. Not only have I done more days than originally scheduled in the 9-5, the Free Festivals book has really got going, the rewrites for the second edition of the Waterboys have been completed, Space Rock Reviews updated and plenty of ideas have been pitched around. I spent an afternoon in St Teath, up in North Cornwall, talking festivals with Swordfish and Wayne from the Magic Mushroom Band (and currently Astralasia). Swordfish had also been kind enough to invite along Pete Pracownik, who supplied not only the cover for <span style="font-style: italic;">Hawkwind – Sonic Assassins</span> but also generously donated the fantastic full-page photograph of himself and Nik Turner that’s in one of the early chapters of the book. Pete’s a really excellent fellow, one of life’s gentlemen. He resides in Tintagel where he’s a noted fantasy artist and these days also spends a lot of time working on his guitar playing and running a shop in the town. Busy chap – so it was extra special to get him along for the interview and all the better for having him there.<br /><br />Driving up with precious little time to spare, I took the wrong left turn (thanks, AA Routemap!) and ended up in the village of St Teath itself where family rumour has suggested my Great Grandfather is buried. I’d like to have had a look around the churchyard and seen if I could find his grave, always assuming it’s a marked one in the first place and, indeed, that he is actually interned there. He survived the first World War only to die following an accident in the Delabole Slate Quarry; we always understood that he’d been killed outright as a result of a fall or explosion or some such thing. When my dear old Grampie (his son) was diagnosed with the cancer that killed him some ten years back he started talking about the experience. It transpired that not only was he not killed outright as we believed, he’d actually survived a number of days at until succumbing to his injuries at home with his second wife (my Great Grandmother having died some years earlier at no great age herself). Strange how family stories held true for years turn-out to be somewhat different than the truth. I’d like to pin down where the old boy lies and make a visit as I was particularly close to my Grampie, a big influence in my life, and it would be really something to be able to make a visit.<br /><br />On the festivals book, Bridget and I (particularly Bridget as she’s been really busy with the book’s Myspace page and generating contacts) have been really heartened with the amount of good vibes and interest we’ve been getting, including some really good questionnaires returned. I also did an excellent interview during last week with David Stokes who’s a painter whose work is mainly informed by what he saw of the festival scene, the buses, the characters, the landscapes etc.<br /><br />Drove up to Bristol last weekend to see Bristol RFC comprehensively trounced in the Heineken cup by Cardiff, to whom they had no response losing 17-0. Of course, the huge advantage of going to see a match where neither side is one that you particularly support or have a tie to is that you can change allegiance on the turn of the game. So, given there’s a Celtic connection, by half time it was ‘Come on Cardiff’, ‘Bread of Heaven’, ‘Did you spill my pint, boyo’ and the rest! I mean, we didn't drive 180 miles to support the loosing side, and, as we comforted ourselves with, probably the lovely Eve Myles from <span style="font-style: italic;">Torchwood</span> supports them as well…<br /><br /><br /><br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-73387465755067261702007-12-30T08:29:00.000-08:002007-12-30T08:31:31.189-08:002007<div style="text-align: justify;">Its hard to be too enthusiastic about a year that was, to all extents and purposes, a transitional year. I made the journey, not quite voluntarily but certainly with a degree of consent, from the 9-5 life into what is currently a hybrid of office-based and work from home freelancing that means that for the first time since leaving school at sixteen I’m not a PAYE worker. It’s best described as a portfolio working life at the moment, I’ve set-up a website (not yet fully completed) to promote myself as a credit management consultant and I’ve done (and am contracted to continue to do so for at least a couple of months yet) some work in that vein with a divested part of the business that I worked for over the last fifteen years. That’s not going to be a continuing contract in the manner in which I currently support them and will over the first half of 2008 start to diminish but it’s been useful in finding my feet post-redundancy and has been a help in loosening bonds rather than cutting them dead. But clearly that part of my life is now drawing gradually to a close and I’ll be working hard in the early months of 2008 to attract additional business customers to this element of my freelance endeavours.<br /><br />More to the point, the taking of redundancy coupled with the continuing contract as it stands has enabled me to see out 2007 in a good financial position and, major unexpected expense aside, means that I can see that 2008 will not be about keeping the wolf from the door during the year but instead will be about building financially for 2009, since as things stand, should I take the easy option and decline to rise from my nice and comfortable bed for the duration of the year, the bills are met. A happy position but also a rare opportunity which needs to be seized with both hands and met full-on if its not to slip away without tangible benefit in channelling my working life in the right direction and enabling me to be more flexible in my working hours and arrangements.<br /><br />On the writing front, I can be satisfied with my achievements as long as I maintain a healthy degree of frustration keeping that properly in check. I did okay, I could have done better. SAF published my book <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat – Mike Scott & The Waterboys</span> in April and we look forward to a revised edition making its appearance in the Spring of 2008 after solid sales of the first edition. SAF have also accepted the book on the Free Festivals history and culture that I’m working on with Bridget Wishart and that should see publication early in 2009 so all things being equally I should be in the happy position of new books appearing in three consecutive years. I recently enjoyed chatting to former Hawkwind guitarist Jerry Richards and to Here & Now’s bass player Keith Bailey for this project and early in the New Year anticipate many interviews with musicians, organisers, performers, artists and attendees. Also on the book front, I’ve very tentatively started plans for a biography of the fondly remembered husband-and-wife wildlife filmmakers, Armand and Michael Denis, and whilst this is at a very early stage right at the moment, it’ll be another project that will occupy time in the first half of 2008 in an attempt to get it off the ground.<br /><br />I think it’s really important that my journalism expands out of the area that I’ve been working in during 2007, the rock music genre. So whilst I’m planning to expand upon what I’ve done so far in that vein, it’s one of my principal challenges to start making sales of articles outside of that arena. But it’s been a pretty good year on the music journalism front all told. <span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span> continued to be an important source of commissions. They published a major eight page feature that I wrote on Hawkwind, surveying the fragmented state of the band’s back catalogue for which I very much enjoyed interview main-man Dave Brock, their former manager Douglas Smith and Voiceprint’s MD Rob Ayling. And, having shied away from writing about Hawkwind for some time, it was good to start learning how to ‘work my material’ as it were. Record Collector also gave me the opportunity to interview MC5’s Wayne Kramer and also Suzanne Vega though sadly due to schedule pressures a planned telephone interview ended-up as an exchange of e-mails. A shame. I also wrote stacks of reviews for the magazine and got my name on the Waterboys guest-list at Colston Hall to review their <span style="font-style: italic;">Book of Lightning</span> tour gig for the magazine. Quite what Mike Scott made of that, Lord knows!<br /><br />I also made sales elsewhere, notably a thousand word interview with Hawkwind’s Alan Davey (now, unfortunately, former-Hawkwind bassist!) for <span style="font-style: italic;">Bass Guitar Magazine</span>; I also interviewed Alan for the SpaceRock website <span style="font-style: italic;">Aural Innovations</span> and did some PR work on his solo album, Human on the Outside. It’s been enormous fun working with Alan on this stuff in 2007. On a sadder note, I made my first sale to <span style="font-style: italic;">The Guardian</span> which, whilst it ticked the box on my ‘to do’ list for the year in terms of writing for a national, was an obituary for Killing Joke’s Paul Raven, someone whose music I’d greatly enjoyed over the years.<br /><br />So I guess I’ll feel that 2007 was a modestly successful writing year. I currently have another sizeable article in progress for <span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span> and, of course, the book projects. I need to continue to gather new customers for my music journalism and have a few promising pitches to send out in January. I’d like to be able to add ‘liner notes’ to my writing CV if the opportunity arises and I’ve enjoyed the PR work I’ve done so far and will look for more chances to work in this area if they arise. I need to build on my first national newspaper sale. My networking skills need a lot of work on them but I do need to get out and about and get myself better known – I was delighted when meeting Esoteric Records’ Mark Powell at Space Ritual’s 100 Club gig in October to discover that he not only recognised my name but even knew some of the stuff I’d written! But I’ve not been great at taking networking opportunities in 2007 and it’s a skill I’ve got to work on. I’d like to try my hand at some fiction, though I’ve never really seen myself as a fiction writer. And most importantly, I’ve got to keep pushing at other popular culture subjects for my journalism. And get an agent!<br /><br /><br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-85929940954681478512007-11-25T11:23:00.000-08:002007-11-25T11:43:15.276-08:00Aqua Sulis Calling<a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nNZ2AvGnI/AAAAAAAAADc/g4D3u_tOvuI/s1600-h/DSCI0007.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nNZ2AvGnI/AAAAAAAAADc/g4D3u_tOvuI/s200/DSCI0007.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136862693871786610" border="0" /></a><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nNNmAvGmI/AAAAAAAAADU/vcZqWh8g9nU/s1600-h/DSCI0006.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nNNmAvGmI/AAAAAAAAADU/vcZqWh8g9nU/s200/DSCI0006.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136862483418389090" border="0" /></a><br /><br /><br /><div style="text-align: justify;">Just got back from a trip to Bath to see the Aqua Sulis Calling gig, a reunion of ‘80s Bath bands. Actually, I missed the headlining Jonah and the Wail as I’d mainly gone to see the revival of the Hippy Slags and chat to a few people about the Free Festivals book which has now been green-lit by SAF Publishing. I did catch the opening set, by Childe Roland, which I thought really rather good and the rockabilly sci-fi of Wild Planets in addition to the, let’s say frankly triumphant, appearance of the Slags themselves. And to cap it all, I enjoyed an hour or so in the company of former Demented Stoats and Smart Pils man Steve Bemand and his lovely lady Juliet in the warm-glow of their candle-lit flat – ostensibly to chat about festivals and the like but which quickly turned into a rambling natter about <span style="font-style: italic;">Doctor Who </span>and other things in the Cult TV line. At the gig, I was also pleased to meet-up again with Neil ‘JollyHawker’ and Jules ‘The Roadmeister’ who I met previously at the Abingdon ‘Space Rock Spectacular’ even if this time they did embarrass me (i.e. leave me secretly very pleased) by producing copies of Sonic Assassins for autographing! I also enjoyed catching-up with Hawkwind drummer Rich Chadwick and meeting some of the ‘Slags’ for the first time!<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nQM2AvGoI/AAAAAAAAADk/_xaalgevBDI/s1600-h/Ian+and+Rich.jpg"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nQM2AvGoI/AAAAAAAAADk/_xaalgevBDI/s200/Ian+and+Rich.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136865769068370562" border="0" /></a><br />I stayed outside of Bath, up at Corsham on the road to Chippenham where the next day brought a rather fetching but particularly chilly covering of frost and, exploring after a suitably filling breakfast I discovered that the pub I was staying in (the now highly recommended Methuen Hotel) backed on to a grove of trees in their vibrant autumnal glory and a wide-expanse of open access farmland. If only I’d travelled more properly attired I’d certainly have taken the opportunity of rambling across crisply coated fields.<br /><br /><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nMtWAvGkI/AAAAAAAAADE/SfWTxDn7ZOs/s1600-h/DSCI0024.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nMtWAvGkI/AAAAAAAAADE/SfWTxDn7ZOs/s200/DSCI0024.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136861929367607874" border="0" /></a><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nM4mAvGlI/AAAAAAAAADM/Bm0RlexBeDA/s1600-h/DSCI0027.JPG"><img style="margin: 0px auto 10px; display: block; text-align: center; cursor: pointer;" src="http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/R0nM4mAvGlI/AAAAAAAAADM/Bm0RlexBeDA/s200/DSCI0027.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5136862122641136210" border="0" /></a><br />In the meantime, I’m trying hard to work to a ‘to do’ list. <span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span> recently published a bundle of reviews and Q&As of mine, of which I particularly enjoyed talking to MC5’s Wayne Kramer (extracts from this not used for RC can be found on my SpaceRock Reviews blog) who still has the indignant fire that fuelled the agit-prop of the 1960s and has his sights firmly targeted on the Bush administration and other sources of unrest. A real gentleman and an excellent interviewee.<br /><br />I’m also working on a ‘space rock’ collectables feature that’s really coming along nicely and should look visually very good and hopefully that’ll be finished-up before the Christmas season hits us full-on (though I’m not banking on that). SAF are reissuing <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat – Mike Scott &</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">The Waterboys</span> in a standard paperback format in March, 2008 and I’ve committed to revising the final chapter to more fully cover the release of <span style="font-style: italic;">Book of Lightning</span> and the subsequent tour and make any corrections the remaining text requires; another pre-Xmas task there.<br /><br />At the start of the year I had on my list of things to achieve, ‘write for national newspaper’. This I ticked-off in November, though not quite in the way I’d have liked to. I’m sure many will have been saddened by the untimely death of Killing Joke bassist Paul Raven at the end of October. My obituary of him was published by <a href="http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2213729,00.html">The Guardian</a> recently and can also be read on-line. His albums with Killing Joke are amongst my favourite LPs of all-time and I was proud to have been commissioned to account for his life.<br /><br />The Festivals Book, co-written with Bridget Wishart, is now starting to take shape and interviews are starting to roll-out. I was delighted to be invited to talk to former Hawkwind guitarist, now Space Ritual bassist, Jerry Richards when Space Ritual appeared at the 100 Club in October and, of course, was pleased to catch up with SR-friends including Nik Turner, Thomas Crimble and Chris Purdon. Chris was kind enough to introduce me to their dancer Angie ‘Miss Angel’ Fallon and Vicky & Mark at Esoteric Records were generous and ensured Jerry’s kind invite to me for a guest-pass was organised. Thanks to all, and if you get a chance, make sure you pick-up Space Ritual’s stonking new studio album Otherworld which I’ll hopefully be commenting on in next month’s <span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span>. I’ve also recently talked with Keith ‘Le Missile’ Bailey from Here & Now for the festivals project and many more interviews are being lined-up for the next couple of months.<br /><br />One other project has started to look quite promising, this time one outside of the music arena. More on that soon!<br /><br /></div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-84455843511007692072007-09-17T11:25:00.000-07:002007-11-06T10:51:43.486-08:00Praise for Strange Boat<div style="text-align: justify;">I received an e-mail through Myspace the other day that I was particularly chuffed with, concerning <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat</span> and sent by someone who had only recently discovered the Waterboys through hearing Fisherman’s Blues on a car radio. That inspired him to buy the album and subsequently the latest Waterboys album, <span style="font-style: italic;">Book of Lightning</span>, through Amazon, which in turn resulted in a purchase of <span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat</span>.<br /><br />“I do love the crazy tales of New York Dolls type excesses,” wrote my correspondent. “But in the absence of this type of behaviour in the Waterboys, you have produced a no less intriguing view of the bands/Mike Scott's development and motivating psychology in an extremely intelligent and balanced way.” Which was a nicely glowing endorsement, but not really the point of mentioning this very kind message.<br /><br />“I finished the book in a day,” he added. “Being a Waterboys novice I was not able to fully appreciate your commentary of some of the albums with which I am not familiar but found your views on those I knew (<span style="font-style: italic;">Fisherman's Blues </span>and <span style="font-style: italic;">Book of Lightning)</span> spot on. I now intend to collect all their albums and when so done will read your book again.” And this is what really made me warm and fuzzy, to be honest. It’s the thought that the book has helped along a new fan’s enthusiasm for Mike Scott’s music and has played a small part in encouraging someone to seek out the music I was writing about. That’s something that tells me I’ve achieved something with this book.<br /><br />I had a similar experience recently on the Yahoo Waterpeople discussion group. A new poster to that list (not aware that I was a member and would see the comments first hand) commented that, having been a fan in the 80s, “<span style="font-style: italic;">Strange Boat</span> has rekindled my interest in The Waterboys.”<br /><br />“The book is decent in a genre that often disappoints, I can't say it is earth shattering but it has made me want to plug the gaps in my Waterboys/Mike Scott collection.” I think that’s good enough for me right now! I don’t expect to be considered in the upper echelons of rock music journalism (yet!), I haven’t written a book as definitive as <span style="font-style: italic;">Revolution in the Head</span> or <span style="font-style: italic;">England’s</span> <span style="font-style: italic;">Dreaming</span>. But if I’ve pulled together a text that has reminded its readers what a singular talent Mike Scott is, or what a wonderfully diverse band the Waterboys are, then I’m satisfied that my work on this one was reasonably well done. I know people like the stories of rock excesses, the sex and drugs and rock ‘n’ roll thing but I think there’s also room in the genre of rock biography for the careful and thoughtful appraisal of a body of work. And in the end, we might like the lurid and the over-the-top, but we also want a book that says, “Hey, this person whose work you’ve invested so much of your own time and emotions into, y’know, is a creature of flesh and bone and human failings. But still your faith and your commitment wasn’t misplaced. The work, and the person, was really worth it.<br /><br />I don’t know what Mike Scott made of Strange Boat. My impression is that of a perfectionist and of someone for whom a third-party assessment of his work couldn’t ever really be correct however well intentioned. But to have achieved a little in opening some of the readers up to his wider body of work, I’m comfortable with the end result.</div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-70231286843391911502007-08-23T11:26:00.000-07:002007-11-06T10:52:31.220-08:00Great Expressions!<div style="text-align: justify;">Graham Taylor got the ball rolling with his legendary explosion on nearing the end of his less than illustrious career as England Football Manager with the famous "Do I Not Like That."<br /><br />Michael <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Melia</span> once ended an episode of <span style="font-style: italic;">Dangerfield</span> by arresting somebody with the fantastic expression "You're nicked, Chummy-Bum."<br /><br />Peter Windsor in <span style="font-style: italic;">F1 </span>Magazine has just gone one better in his piece this month (well, character <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">assassination</span> wouldn't be too unfair a description) on Ralf <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Schumacher</span>. This, of course, is the Toyota driver who has sucked up something like $72M over the last three years for driving around the midfield - on the rare <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">occasions</span> he's got the car off the grid and through the first corner. Anyway, Ralf had turned up for a photo session for the magazine and demanded that for his cooperation the magazine should in turn take a more favourable view towards him. Windsor, apparently, refused, taking the wind out of <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Schumacher</span> Jr's sails. Still Ralf persisted, it was only fair, quid-pro-<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">quo</span>. And so on.<br /><br />Eventually Windsor lost his patience and ordered the spluttering driver out of the photo shoot. When he refused to go and continued trying to negotiate the improvement in his profile with the publication, Windsor yelled what surely is an immortal line:<br /><br />"Ralf, Off You Fuck."<br /><br />What a great expression! Mind you, "You're <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">nicked</span>, Chummy-Bum" is still my favourite.</div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-60068188696261177072007-08-22T08:28:00.000-07:002007-11-06T10:52:55.644-08:00The one with Facebook<div style="text-align: justify;">I added the 'Compare People' function on <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Facebook</span> the other day and I have to agree with one of my friends there that the application, wherein you compare two friends and determine which is, for example, the more famous, the better marriage prospect or indeed which you'd prefer to be handcuffed to, can be thought of as a 'bit moldy'. And yet, it's quite compelling in its own way. But it reminded me today of that episode of <em>Friends</em> where Ross decides that sleeping with people other than Rachel would be <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">ok</span> as long as they were famous and on a predetermined list of five celebrities. Rachel of course takes it all as a bit of a joke, and Ross naturally takes it extremely seriously and spends the episode agonising over who should be on his approved for sleeping with list.<br /><br />And so to <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">Facebook</span> where today I was confronted with two of my female <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">Facebook</span> Friends and asked the rather awkward 'who would you rather sleep with' question (answer guaranteed as anonymous thankfully). So that's been my task for this afternoon ... trying to decide.<br /><br />As the starting point for a new project, yesterday I wrote to a genuine legend of broadcasting. And on that note ...</div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-23873632.post-90505220676543168242007-08-20T10:27:00.000-07:002007-11-06T10:53:17.539-08:00When the sun shone<div style="text-align: justify;">I'm so unlucky in picking the right week to take a holiday that given this year's pathetic excuse for a summer you couldn't imagine that in the meteorological Russian roulette I'd manage to pick the loaded barrel and enjoyed a week away from the 9-5 in relative good weather and sunshine. But I did. So in the run-up to the incredibly long awaited move to the freelance lifestyle (that's redundancy if you want it spelt out - but, hey, I've been a 9-5 guy for so long I can only now see the positives), I grabbed a week of what Cornwall has to offer, let down my hair and relaxed. Which was great since it included a leisurely lunch gazing over the river at the Pandora Inn, a lazy ramble through the sub-tropical gardens at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_0">Trebah</span> and down onto it's small beach where, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_1">un</span><a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/RsnZ0cXX4MI/AAAAAAAAACE/RXFg24vxsl4/s1600-h/DSCI0010.JPG"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://4.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/RsnZ0cXX4MI/AAAAAAAAACE/RXFg24vxsl4/s200/DSCI0010.JPG" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100847547964448962" border="0" /></a>prepared for such nice weather at least Janet and the boys managed some paddling.<br /><br />More serious <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_2">watersports</span> (if, let's face it, a somewhat overweight middle-aged man in a wet-suit can be taken seriously <span style="font-style: italic;">at all</span>) saw Morgan and myself surfing (well, <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_3">ok</span>, body-boarding but <span style="font-style: italic;">surfing</span> sounds so much cooler) at <a href="http://www.parishtram.co.uk/cam"><span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_4">Portreath</span></a> with, as it happened, a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_5">sizeable</span> seal that was picking up the waves alongside us. Quite thrilling actually.<br /><br /><span style="font-style: italic;">Record Collector</span> last month featured the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_6">Hawkwind</span> article that I'd sent them a few months back and though it needed some trimmings for over-length, it looked really good and ran to some eight pages including the full page advert taken out in support of the piece by my friends at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_7">Voiceprint</span> Records. Really encouraging to see that in print, and in the same issue as a quick interview with Suzanne Vega that I'd unfortunately had to conduct by e-mail when all attempts to schedule a <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_8">phoner</span> into her hectic dash to Europe and the UK in July came to nowt. I've been a bit barren of major magazine pieces since the Damned interview last year so the publication of the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_9">Hawkwind</span> piece came at a very timely moment. I'm now working up a few new ideas for various targets - following the advice I was given recently to pick ten prospects, consider what I'd pitch each of them ... and get on with it.<br /><br />I also have a couple of book projects now taking shape. The Festivals book with Bridget <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_10">Wishart</span> is starting to take shape and early contributors will be receiving a <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_11">questionnaire</span> to get them started very soon now. We've received some excellent photographs from Stonehenge and elsewhere, and I'm hoping we'll be in a position to announce contracts and stuff really soon, though the wheels of publishing grind slowly. I've also started to gather material for another solo book, this time outside of the music genre so I'll say nothing more about that until I can see whether it really has good prospects, but short of there already being a work in progress on the subject in question I think it's a great chance to broaden the literary horizons.<br /><br />Finally, mentioning the Damned, those old <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_12">scally</span>-wags turned up in Cornwall last <span class="blsp-spelling-corrected" id="SPELLING_ERROR_13">Friday</span> for their third appearance in recent years at the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_14">Falmouth</span> Princess Pavilions. Honestly, they are a karaoke band ... but a bloody good one. They (unwisely I thought given the strength of the material) declined to play anything written this <span style="font-style: italic;">century</span>, eschewing any tracks from 2001's <span style="font-style: italic;">Grave Disorder</span> and dropping last years' excellent single Little Miss Disaster and keeping the set-list to <span style="font-style: italic;">Phantasmagoria</span> and prior. But they really get the crowd going, can still pull a decent sized audience, <a onblur="try {parent.deselectBloggerImageGracefully();} catch(e) {}" href="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/RsnZz8XX4LI/AAAAAAAAAB8/6cPFo1zDuzs/s1600-h/scan0049.jpg"><img style="margin: 0pt 10px 10px 0pt; float: left; cursor: pointer;" src="http://2.bp.blogspot.com/_eINfx4bb_DA/RsnZz8XX4LI/AAAAAAAAAB8/6cPFo1zDuzs/s200/scan0049.jpg" alt="" id="BLOGGER_PHOTO_ID_5100847539374514354" border="0" /></a>and Dave <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_15">Vanian</span> clearly still has the <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_16">wizen</span> picture stored away in his attic that can be the only explanation for his lack of ageing over the years. I first saw them on their 10<span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_17">th</span> Anniversary gig at <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_18">Finsbury</span> Park and I'd swear that <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_19">Vanian</span> looks no different now than he did then. I had my own <span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_20">Vanian</span> moment once, at the insistence of the girl I was dating at the time - though it didn't do me any good in the longevity stakes I fear. Anyway, judge for your self at the gig photos I found on-line <a href="http://cornishlivegigreview.blogspot.com/2007/08/gigs-in-august-2007-princess-pavilions.html">here</a> and this photograph that surely I should have never let see the light of day.</div>Ian Abrahamshttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11559298947264569514noreply@blogger.com0