tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-25274405276363681712024-02-20T20:24:47.382+00:00Sussex SeditionThe poetry of everyday life.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.comBlogger268125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-16498336134021862102021-01-23T15:25:00.000+00:002021-01-23T15:25:14.350+00:00The Man of the Crowd<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9QXZYrClQUeLrh7iLgOeiACM6q_to0_U6IqflU-p_dLnk3i-VjfRkfsGXDfqJQxSUdpR_kedvQhkB4ASUn-cdk7bdTnabM2uRc5taHE-SbPAfCWXPS9KBeiS7YRAdwYW4e6a82eDZSU/s307/Man+of+the+Crowd.jpg" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="307" data-original-width="197" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhC9QXZYrClQUeLrh7iLgOeiACM6q_to0_U6IqflU-p_dLnk3i-VjfRkfsGXDfqJQxSUdpR_kedvQhkB4ASUn-cdk7bdTnabM2uRc5taHE-SbPAfCWXPS9KBeiS7YRAdwYW4e6a82eDZSU/s0/Man+of+the+Crowd.jpg" /></a></div><div>As though we are talking about Godfather films, one of the teenagers asks me, "Which is your favourite lockdown: 1, 2 or 3?" I tell him that it was the one that wasn't really a lockdown, the one where everything was normal except for... then I can't seem to remember exactly what we were not allowed to do in November and, despite a discussion that involves the whole family, we cannot agree what the restrictions were during that ineffective pre-Christmas lockdown. What we do agree on is that number 3 is the worst in terms of both lockdowns and The Godfather sequence. </div><div><br /></div><div>In the first lockdown we were able to spend a lot of time in the garden, which was particularly good respite for the teenagers having spent their days hunched over screens doing school and college work; in the bleak midwinter, however, that is not an option. Instead, we have initiated a Friday night ritual in the kitchen: Uno, beer, party food and everyone taking it in turns to choose music. I have lost a lot of card games, eaten too many mini-samosas and listened to Kanye West more than I care to over the last few weeks; but it brings us together and marginalises Instagram, TikTok and Xbox for a time.</div><div><br /></div><div>With the usual sporting activities all suspended, there are few opportunities for the teenagers to exercise outdoors: by the time each day's studies have finished, there is a finite amount of daylight left to allow for a short walk if they can be persuaded out into the cold. Even at weekends options are limited: our usual winter routine would be to drive to Bexhill or Hastings, walk dogs along the seafront and eat fish 'n' chips; but observing the instruction to stay local we are left with the nearby footpaths and fields which are wet, wet, wet.</div><div><br /></div><div>The countryside can be a forlorn place at this time of year in normal circumstances; but a pandemic in winter is testing even my perverse enjoyment of bleak isolation. Skeletal trees and bare fields stretching into the distance under grey skies is no longer liberating but suffocating. I know I should not complain: many are stuck in flats in towns and cities truly experiencing claustrophobia; but I long to see people when I step out of my front door instead of rooks and crows. Birds may be allowed to assemble in their parliaments and murders at the moment but, quite rightly, crowds of humans are forbidden.</div><div><br /></div><div>When this is all over (how many of us begin sentences with that phrase, now) and life is safe again, I will be Edgar Allan Poe's <i>The Man of the Crowd</i>. In Poe's short story of that name, the narrator follows an old man who he spots in the street outside as he people-watches from a London coffee shop. Intrigued by the man's determined expression and dishevelled appearance, the narrator follows him through the teeming city streets. Never stopping, the man passes through shopping districts, markets, rich areas, poor areas and the pursuit continues into the evening and through the night. When the streets thin out, the man doubles back seeking the crowd afresh. By morning, the exhausted narrator realises that there is no purpose to the man's walking: he speaks to no one, he never buys, drinks or eats. He revels in being at the heart of the metropolis, part of the energy and throng of the city; he is simply the man of the crowd. I can't wait to join him.
</div>Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-80388252571576244862020-12-18T16:14:00.003+00:002020-12-19T16:15:18.746+00:0020 Things I Discovered This Year Or Remembered That I Already Knew<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkG1gCFED7G9tMO2lqIB7gxj9i0mPRJbrryLqpV-TmlzSO1ZrJji70ZJ919cTYU2N5KYvZ1h0ilee2Y5LlY0Ru1xLQxNECHtaMkph3q2-TodKGjAlIAt99Pk8xmKZCxE4NUb6oV5cTzOQ/s1300/blog+year.jpg" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" data-original-height="863" data-original-width="1300" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjkG1gCFED7G9tMO2lqIB7gxj9i0mPRJbrryLqpV-TmlzSO1ZrJji70ZJ919cTYU2N5KYvZ1h0ilee2Y5LlY0Ru1xLQxNECHtaMkph3q2-TodKGjAlIAt99Pk8xmKZCxE4NUb6oV5cTzOQ/s320/blog+year.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br /><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><br /></div>January and February were the best months - for a change.<div><br />The Conservative Party
is the single biggest threat to the prosperity and wellbeing of all ordinary people in
the UK.<br /><br />I miss London.<br /><br />Dogs AND cats: you don't have to choose.<br /><br />The Fall were
amazing from beginning to end. Retrospective listening to their LPs and CDs has
soundtracked my year; this has not been an entirely popular move in my house.<br /><br />Social media can be a force for good: my music corner of Twitter is full of
lovely people (just avoid that rancid cesspit, Facebook).<br /><br />Caleb Femi's poetry
collection, Poor.<br /><br />Discogs.<br /><br />Reality is gibberish (I saw Jason from Sleaford Mods
being interviewed at the End of the Road festival in 2019 and he used this
phrase. I wrote it down on my phone for future use; now seems like the right
time).<br /><br />I can happily survive on a rotating diet of vegetable chilli, butternut
tagine and spinach and aubergine curry.<br /><br />Cardomon pods are actually called
cardomom pods.<br /><br />Bill Shankly was wrong: football is not more important than
matters of life and death.<br /><br />One of my neighbours has more power tools than Black
and Decker.<br /><br />The BBC is still the best: Small Axe, Normal People, I May Destroy
You.<br /><br />My Scottish/Irish/northern English heritage has never felt more important
to me.<br /><br />Nubya Garcia's album, Source.<br /><br />I'm glad I don't live in London anymore.<br /><br />There can always be a new low in being a Millwall supporter.<br /><br />England Is A Garden: a 30-year-old
British Asian band made the album of the year.<br /><br />Despair is cumulative.</div>Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-90663015570869211202020-08-31T16:01:00.000+01:002020-08-31T16:01:00.850+01:00To Autumn<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDIGV8JG6YNUMJMLuWIngWaTxbFMq2v9irM8YHdFF130v2eXJ-01qIHpB3d41iJj-EZvP0NonuQ8u1JQOOOWocyAJW55aA44a1-fesYs5R_ECfJCYVwGb3yX8R9fOHBIBHwKJoweidBwQ/s1600/autumn.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDIGV8JG6YNUMJMLuWIngWaTxbFMq2v9irM8YHdFF130v2eXJ-01qIHpB3d41iJj-EZvP0NonuQ8u1JQOOOWocyAJW55aA44a1-fesYs5R_ECfJCYVwGb3yX8R9fOHBIBHwKJoweidBwQ/s320/autumn.png" width="299" height="320" data-original-width="1496" data-original-height="1600" /></a><br />
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All too quickly, summer is spent. The intensity of the heatwave at the start of the month seems to have exhausted the season and we are now suffering from early onset autumn. In the vegetable patch, the lettuce has bolted and the courgette plants have stopped offering up fruit; in the greenhouse, the tomatoes have all been harvested and the cucumber plants have collapsed. In the hedgerow opposite, the blackberries are already ripe and are being rustled by a cool north wind. At home, there has already been mutinous talk of lighting the wood burner but there are no logs yet and it seems heresy to wear a jumper in August.<br />
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Usually, I would embrace the arrival of autumn and the sharp focus it brings after the hazy wide-angle sprawl of summer; but I am in denial and want to put off its arrival for as long as possible: because not everything is normal and not everything is early. Some things are late or not happening at all: the familiar marker of the football season is delayed and mass music events have been cancelled. Usually at this time I would be preparing for End of the Road, the final fixture in the festival calendar; but this year my tent is staying in the shed and I will be watching an online stream from an audience-free Larmer Tree Gardens.<br />
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Mostly, I want autumn to wait in the wings a bit longer because of what it may bring. With schools attempting to return to normal, office workers summoned by the clarion call to save the sandwich shops and a stubbornly unmoving R number, we can only wait, watch and wonder while autumn's 'barred clouds bloom the soft-dying day.'Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-41627023156547277752020-07-28T17:31:00.000+01:002020-07-28T17:31:42.356+01:00The Old Normal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfovCzxrLLgGpvT5BWTwg-BJis8RZmqBvRwUJke_whSYwfIU53Zo_4Y1DaDLv6ROZJkUJ14f1C2E9TXKzRpNCSvcPXUHAFr9lNUzgAhTdApDhcqEkhaaylUex9hGTgn8xjLz0kLV1lOO8/s1600/DLWP.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjfovCzxrLLgGpvT5BWTwg-BJis8RZmqBvRwUJke_whSYwfIU53Zo_4Y1DaDLv6ROZJkUJ14f1C2E9TXKzRpNCSvcPXUHAFr9lNUzgAhTdApDhcqEkhaaylUex9hGTgn8xjLz0kLV1lOO8/s320/DLWP.jpg" width="264" height="320" data-original-width="1082" data-original-height="1313" /></a><br />
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We venture out. As a whole family. The teenagers are a bit nervous: since the Covid-19 lockdown began to ease they've seen friends in parks and gardens but none of them have been to a built-up area, let alone go into a public building, move around in the same space as other people, sit down and eat and drink in a restaurant.<br />
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The De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill-on-Sea has just opened up again after a long closure and we wanted to support our favourite local institution. Numbers are obviously limited so we booked online for a two-hour Sunday lunchtime slot. This gave us access to the exhibitions, the shops and the café.<br />
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When we arrive it's all very welcoming. We are asked to wear our masks in the gallery spaces and the shops but we do not have to as we move around the building or in the café. The café is where we head for first as the teenagers find it difficult to go more than two hours without food. The staff seem genuinely pleased to see us: these are their jobs and they're still here; how many jobs is the country destined to lose when the furlough scheme ends?<br />
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The food comes and the lime and coriander chicken is a hit with the carnivores; the black bean and beetroot falafels are a hit with me. The Guinness is even better: home drinking is ok but being out and having a pint feels like a liberation. We all admire an elderly gent sitting in the corner: he has a sea-facing table for one, iPad and earphones, pint of bitter. He alternates his gaze between the horizon and his screen and every so often lifts his mask to have a swig of beer. He looks inordinately happy to be out in the world. The middle teen asks me if that's what I aspire to in old age; damn right.<br />
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Afterwards we don our masks and wander through the Zadie Xa and Marc Bauer exhibitions and then the kids go off to walk along the seafront and search for ice cream. We mooch around the gift shop: my wife picks up some Eric Ravilious cards and I get a Derek Jarman book. I start to flick through the racks in the Music's Not Dead record shop, now located in the main foyer. I stay too long, obviously, and am left on my own. I buy a Fall album and find a rare Nico LP that I can justify the price of.<br />
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The two-hour slot comes to an end so I step outside into the afternoon to find the others. They are all relaxing on a wall eating 99s; the terrace bar is open and some people are soaking up the sun and the beer; a smattering of cyclists and dog walkers are parading on the promenade; this all feels (almost) like the old normal.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-62218684003794923302020-06-15T15:49:00.000+01:002020-06-15T15:49:20.722+01:00Real Surreal<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvtvr-LYlgm_zEZzgKsn5cQ6-pXHRcJK8iaVSNWuZmOVPKHZ4dZPEq8sbNXEuqqISUnaHa0Ss0RiMChY6BAyTdxL2ZgON2A2aKCPeU4FsfZezOAPM4XSt6nJIVUqNRP2Q-OoPA9Rl8UQ/s1600/lobster+telephone.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgwvtvr-LYlgm_zEZzgKsn5cQ6-pXHRcJK8iaVSNWuZmOVPKHZ4dZPEq8sbNXEuqqISUnaHa0Ss0RiMChY6BAyTdxL2ZgON2A2aKCPeU4FsfZezOAPM4XSt6nJIVUqNRP2Q-OoPA9Rl8UQ/s320/lobster+telephone.jpg" width="320" height="237" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1186" /></a><br />
<br />
Most people would be forgiven for not recognising the name Edward James as a leading figure of the 20th century art world; but the chances are that you’ve seen a painting of him. Rene Magritte’s famous work, <i>Not To Be Reproduced</i>, showing the rear view of a man looking into a mirror only for the back of his head to be reflected in the glass, features James; and another work, <i>The Pleasure Principle</i>, is also a portrait of James, though it’s hard to tell as the head atop a double-breasted suit is an orb of intense radiating light - Surrealists, eh?<br />
<br />
Edward James was born into a wealthy family in 1907 to a merchant father and socialite mother. It was rumoured that he had been fathered by Edward VII, but then, who wasn’t in those days? He inherited his home, the West Dean estate near Chichester in West Sussex, on the death of his father in 1912 but, being only 5-years-old at the time, he couldn’t get his hands on it until 1932. By this time, James had finished his education at Oxford, with contemporaries Evelyn Waugh and John Betjeman, and was gadding about Europe with his wife, Austrian dancer and painter Tilly Losch. Their relationship was fairly brief and they divorced acrimoniously: he accusing her of adultery, she accusing him of being homosexual.<br />
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After the marriage, James concentrated on writing, publishing three volumes of poetry in the 1930s, and hanging out with Surrealist artists. He sponsored Salvador Dali for a couple of years and Dali introduced him to Magritte. But his biggest contribution to Surrealism happened back in Sussex. He had amassed a huge art collection, including works by Paul Klee, Leonora Carrington and Max Ernst, as well as Dali and Magritte, and in 1935 he took this to Monkton House, a Lutyens-designed hunting lodge on his West Dean estate. With the help of architects and designers, he set about transforming the house into a surrealist heaven. Behind a purple exterior were rooms with padded and geometrically patterned walls filled with paintings and artefacts. Dali’s most famous contributions to the house’s furnishings were his <i>Mae West Lips Sofa</i> and his <i>Lobster Telephone</i>.<br />
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In the 1940s, James visited Mexico and, having fallen in love with the country’s natural beauty, he dedicated the rest of his life to creating <i>Las Pozas</i>, a subtropical garden containing waterfalls, pools and works of art. In 1964, he donated his West Dean estate to a charitable trust to establish a centre for the teaching of traditional arts and crafts. Much of his art collection was sold before and after his death in 1984 and, although West Dean College of Arts and Conservation continues to thrive on the estate where James is buried, Monkton House is in private hands and is closed to visitors. However, if four-storey high Surrealist concrete sculptures are your thing, <i>Las Pozas</i> is open.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-84770802802283066002020-05-18T15:59:00.000+01:002020-05-19T07:48:20.649+01:00Saturday Fever<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWrF8O9rmG68N-zpn-4mQIDWqI-v3aM1wTmFSS4yLKl7DCYQpOR8xyIhzUmne9UiyPyX0-rnPqq6jrSBpCRcmL1C9_aWLDgfvYBpiU_kZMIcshPaaUrmoLRnqFXhigZDjjfckjdCTaLU/s1600/Lockdown.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgoWrF8O9rmG68N-zpn-4mQIDWqI-v3aM1wTmFSS4yLKl7DCYQpOR8xyIhzUmne9UiyPyX0-rnPqq6jrSBpCRcmL1C9_aWLDgfvYBpiU_kZMIcshPaaUrmoLRnqFXhigZDjjfckjdCTaLU/s320/Lockdown.png" width="249" height="320" data-original-width="1246" data-original-height="1600" /></a><br />
<br />
Saturday morning. The teenagers are still in bed, freed for the weekend from the surprising pressure of remote learning. Suffering from cabin fever, we think about going to the beach; but even though we can now, we don’t. Stay home. Stay alert. We stay home. We sit in the garden. We are lucky. The quiet of the missing planes heading for Gatwick is still a joy. We watch the jackdaws desperately clinging on to the birdfeeder to peck at a fat ball; the sparrows sit on the veg plot fence trying to find a way through to eat the young beetroot seedlings like they did last year; I must put a net over those gooseberries.<br />
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I make some more coffee. I am almost sick of coffee – but not quite. The radio – what would we do without radio – is playing Nick Cave. I wonder if Nick’s sitting in his garden wearing a three-piece suit; I like to think he is. The continual temptation to check the news has eased. I am past caring which government minister has revealed their ineptitude in the morning round of media appearances. Still people will vote for them, even with 40,000 dead. What would the toll need to be to stop them being elected? 50,000? 75,000? Vote for me and I promise to keep casual slaughter and immigration both below 100,000.<br />
<br />
Power Tool Pete on the end is out; furlough has pushed him to the limit of his tether. There is no drill, mower, blower that he cannot deploy hourly in the relentless cause of maintaining a tiny terraced cottage and garden. Daughter has reported from her back-bedroom eyrie that he is instructing his ten-year-old son in the art of shed-building.<br />
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Back indoors, the excitable long-legged dog dances about in front of us, like a prancing show pony, in anticipation of a walk. We take him out. The little-legged dog has to stay home. He is eleven and feeling it; on the last lengthy walk, I had to carry him home for the last two miles. A saying kept popping into my head: there’s no point in keeping a dog and doing the walking for both of you - or something like that.<br />
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We have always walked the dogs along the local footpaths and fields, here. Even walking every day, we rarely saw another soul. When lockdown started, we kept coming across dogs and people we had never seen before. Where had they come from? Didn’t they walk their dogs in normal times? Today the paths are deserted again; they’ve all gone to the beach. Coming home we nod and smile to some of the neighbours we nod and smile to during the weekly Clap for Carers - even the ones who had a Vote Conservative placard up in December. You want to save the NHS? I’ll tell you how you can fucking save the NHS…<br />
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We eat and read and doze and drink through the afternoon; teenagers concoct ever more unlikely snack combinations to sustain the TikTok and Xbox activities. The temperature drops a few degrees and the smell of cooking meat wafts across the gardens. The young couple next-door-but-one have friends round for a barbecue. Is that..? No. From the other direction, Pete fires up his patio heater to compensate for the grounded aircraft. We head indoors for the evening and torture ourselves by listing the things we’ll do on a Saturday when this is all over: go to The Codfather in Hastings for fish ‘n’ chips; sit on the balcony of the De La Warr in Bexhill and buy records in Music’s Not Dead; wander through The Lanes in Brighton; go to a gig. The ordinary. We crave the ordinary. If we can just have the ordinary back we’ll never complain about anything again, we say. Except Pete and his one-man war on the environment and those bastards up the road who vote Tory.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-55717285977360483442020-04-08T10:10:00.000+01:002020-04-08T10:10:54.092+01:00London: Walk With Me<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8wkfUwUFy6V_gvjc54z8qwr04OpknNkcCqJAXxzU_v8xGAMjY9LG9XgoAiQtA60PIevi_RYR37ikbEenQgo084Lg7V4V-KGZ_uw9LXNg5gEVi1zYI0rizmsINmKAvibCRxAlt6uCI-4/s1600/London+collage.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjy8wkfUwUFy6V_gvjc54z8qwr04OpknNkcCqJAXxzU_v8xGAMjY9LG9XgoAiQtA60PIevi_RYR37ikbEenQgo084Lg7V4V-KGZ_uw9LXNg5gEVi1zYI0rizmsINmKAvibCRxAlt6uCI-4/s320/London+collage.jpg" width="320" height="320" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1600" /></a><br />
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Lockdown. We truly are a nuclear unit: no wider family, no friends. Fixtures in the calendar fall one by one and we begin to doubt that any of the things we planned will take place. Every year, I meet up with two friends for a day of walking during one of the school holidays; we are in an endless break from school now but there is no prospect of a ten-hour trek. With 2020 looking like a write-off, my mind turns back to last Easter when, after ten years of rural walks, the three of us broke with tradition and set off on a Maundy Thursday urban odyssey. As the only Londoner, it fell to me to plan a route across the capital that took in some of the things that always dominate our walking conversations.<br />
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Having met at Victoria station – two of us arriving from Sussex and one from Somerset via an Airbnb that was a converted domestic garage in Vauxhall - our first stop was the Regency Café. Designed in an art deco style in 1946 and still retaining the original glazed tiled exterior and interior, the café has featured in film and television many times as a current and period location. Its Formica-topped tables, full English breakfasts and builders’ tea make it popular with workers and tourists alike and it was amid a heaving and noisy atmosphere that we fuelled ourselves for the day ahead.<br />
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I had deliberately chosen the timing of our walk to coincide with, not only the Easter holidays, but also an exhibition at Tate Britain. As we walked down to the Tate through the Lutyens-designed council flats of the Grosvenor Estate, and the Millbank Estate where each block is named after a Victorian artist, we discussed why the photographer Don McCullin had always cropped up on our walks: primarily because of his photographs of Somerset and Sussex, but also because we constantly confused his name with television presenter Don Maclean of <i>Crackerjack!</i> (Crackerjack!) and we further confused <i>him</i> with Bernie Clifton, the guy who used to pretend to ride an ostrich on the same television programme. It became a running joke - but perhaps you had to be there. McCullin’s retrospective of sixty years of photography was stunning: the stark monochrome images, each hand-developed himself, of conflicts from Vietnam through to Syria, via Northern Ireland and Cyprus, and poverty in London and Bradford, are a vivid and influential commentary on the post-war world.<br />
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Leaving the gallery and walking north up through Westminster, we crossed Parliament Square where the pro and anti-Brexit protesters had temporarily ceded possession to Extinction Rebellion. Cutting through St. James’ Park we headed for Regent Street where we turned off into Heddon Street. Heddon Street is where, on the evening of 13 January 1972, Brian Ward persuaded a young rock musician to leave the warmth of the photographic studio to take some pictures outside in the cold, dark street. Wearing a jumpsuit, with a guitar slung over his shoulder and his foot on a rubbish bin, David Bowie posed under the sign of K.West, a firm of furriers, for a black and white shot that would later be colour tinted and find its way on to the cover of <i>The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars</i>. In all the years I lived in London, I had never visited this spot. We unfurled a homemade K.West sign to recreate the scene and posed for photographs next to the commemorative plaque. The alfresco diners at the restaurants that now dominate the street didn’t bat an eyelid: this sort of thing must happen all the time.<br />
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Crossing Regent Street to start heading east, we made our way through Soho, pausing only for a spot of record buying at Sister Ray and Reckless Records in Berwick Street. One of our number had expressed a wish to eat pie and mash for lunch as a typical London delicacy. Not having the time to cross south of the river to visit Manze’s in Tower Bridge Road, we had to settle for a tourist alternative; at Battersea Pie Station (groan) in Covent Garden we had pie and we had mash but it wasn’t pie and mash.<br />
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After our brief lunch stop and a quick cider, we walked north to Bloomsbury and then on to the fringes of Clerkenwell. All three of us being English teachers, two of us having read all of Charles Dickens’s novels and one of us having been taught at Birkbeck by Michael Slater the foremost Dickens academic, a visit to 48 Doughty Street, WC1 was a must. Now a museum, Dickens lived there from 1837; it is the house in which Catherine Dickens gave birth to their first three children and where <i>The Pickwick Papers</i> was completed, <i>Oliver Twist</i> and <i>Nicholas Nickleby</i> written and <i>Barnaby Rudge</i> begun. We saw the desk where he wrote and also drafts of his novels and articles for the <i>Evening Chronicle</i>. A tall, narrow Georgian terrace, its interior has been recreated as the Victorian family home the expanding Dickens family left in 1839.<br />
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All our walking in recent years having been in open countryside, it struck us that travelling half the distance in London made you twice as tired. It was late afternoon and the stretch of Clerkenwell Road ahead of us seemed a daunting prospect; but the traffic and the crowds temporarily thinned as we progressed further east. The sun had been shining all day and as the shadows lengthened we knew we were nearing our final destination. The roar of traffic from the roundabout increased but we turned off Old Street and plunged into the relative quiet of Bunhill Fields. Graves of the famous – Malcolm Lowry, Spike Milligan, Frankie Howerd, Siegfried Sassoon - have been a feature of our walks over the years but none so illustrious as that of poet, painter and visionary, William Blake. Blake was buried in a shared grave at Bunhill Fields when he died in 1827 at the age of 69 but, until recently, it was only marked by a stone that declared his remains were ‘near by’. In 2018, following 14 years of work, the exact location of Blake’s remains was found. A group of street drinkers directed us from the original stone to the new one with its inscription of a verse from, probably his best-known work, <i>Jerusalem</i>.<br />
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Bunhill Fields is now a public garden and, as we sat on a bench reflecting on our walk, we were joined by meditative City workers at the end of their day taking advantage of the oasis of calm the setting provided. Like any well-prepared teacher, I had an extension activity planned in case we finished early but it was not required. One year on, and I’m sure the drinkers will have been moved on and the office workers discouraged from lingering and I know that all the places we visited during the day are now closed. When the lockdown ends, we’ll meet again in Bunhill Fields to complete that extra task; we’ll walk north up City Road to the Angel and visit 25 Noel Road, where playwright Joe Orton and Kenneth Halliwell so tragically lived and died; then we’ll retire to the legendary Island Queen pub further down the road and spend the rest of the day drinking. I don’t know when that will be but, whenever it is, everybody’s welcome.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-4536637373852991642020-03-22T17:31:00.000+00:002020-03-23T06:19:25.585+00:00Home Alone<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2y82f8VpVMb4-MwwjYgUQEgrKdlZDz3tBYHl5-cvt9nehlH2vmFOVe0SCIOhE3__-teoK7OM0o8bKCRmnVQEsiZdAFDB7baiafBmMo_zZYXPltA2k0KombGsoSGr3X2rQv556BYdpLvs/s1600/Firle+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2y82f8VpVMb4-MwwjYgUQEgrKdlZDz3tBYHl5-cvt9nehlH2vmFOVe0SCIOhE3__-teoK7OM0o8bKCRmnVQEsiZdAFDB7baiafBmMo_zZYXPltA2k0KombGsoSGr3X2rQv556BYdpLvs/s320/Firle+2.JPG" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="320" data-original-height="240" /></a><br />
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The sunshine mocks the situation: hard to believe the country is in crisis when the shackles of winter have been cast off and the cries of peewits battle the bluster of the sharp wind on this bright spring morning high up on the Sussex Downs. It's Sunday but in the village of Firle, nestling down below, St. Peter's church is quiet; and in the Ram Inn there is no bustle of preparation for the Mothers' Day hordes.<br />
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Self-isolation is the order of the day; but with dogs to walk and three teenagers suffering from sporting cancellations, estrangement from friends and schoolwork at home, a remedy for early onset cabin fever is prescribed. Even at this hour of the day we are not alone: already, there is a mountain-biking Mamil, all rictus grin and crimson flush, a pair of horse riders trotting with dogs in tow and a group of Nordic Pole-wielding walkers taking up the width of the way; social distancing is required. Although we don't have exclusivity, it is still glorious: the panoramic view to Crowborough in the north, Hastings to the east and Seaford at the southernmost point is breath-taking; and squares of chalky fields pave the path to Lewes, cradled by the Downs further to the west. <br />
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However, relative solitude is never easy to maintain and by the time we reach the apex of Firle Beacon and turn to retrace our steps, it is clear that many more are seeking respite from confinement. Rows of windscreens now glisten in the car park that marks our starting point and very soon there are groups of walkers using the breadth of the downland to maintain the recommended two metres distance. Next time, we need to be earlier or take our constitutional in a less popular spot - or come to terms with the fact that we can only be alone at home.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-13128278501753157882020-02-01T10:41:00.000+00:002020-02-01T10:41:15.171+00:00Brothers in the Dust<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDCQKJ9dfGlOn4AbgS1UjkELf7Txr6lycrbFQDJUUqAluLUTygvxpTRiYg-iS6nwPwrEiDX1w_X67LhiZb4vpBxT_YWcfxmhMgldNbNfGOJUoteqoUS-0k2V28RqXzvA3Rsx2m_GXd88/s1600/Leaf+Hall.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjuDCQKJ9dfGlOn4AbgS1UjkELf7Txr6lycrbFQDJUUqAluLUTygvxpTRiYg-iS6nwPwrEiDX1w_X67LhiZb4vpBxT_YWcfxmhMgldNbNfGOJUoteqoUS-0k2V28RqXzvA3Rsx2m_GXd88/s320/Leaf+Hall.jpg" width="320" height="214" data-original-width="619" data-original-height="413" /></a><br />
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In Dickens’s <i>A Christmas Carol</i>, the ghost of Christmas present admonishes Scrooge for his lack of charity to those less well off than he. “O God! To hear the insect on the leaf pronouncing on the too much life among his hungry brothers in the dust!”, he exclaims at Scrooge’s declaration that the poor should die to decrease the surplus population. Dickens’s leaf was metaphorical but in Eastbourne, twenty years after Dickens wrote those words, there was a more literal leaf that sought to raise those less well off out of the dust.<br />
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Today, on a slightly down-at-heel stretch of Seaside, the road that runs behind Eastbourne’s coastal Royal Parade, sits an imposing buff and red brick building. Topped with a four-faced clock tower and a high pitched roof with a gothic arched window at its gable end, it manages to appear both civic and sacred at the same time. Squashed between Senlac House - where future motorists come to sit their driving theory test - and a National Tyres garage, its signage advertises that it is home to an academy of performing arts and a community arts centre; but this was not always the case.<br />
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Leaf Hall – the town’s oldest public building - was named after William Laidler Leaf, Victorian philanthropist and evangelical Christian, who had a holiday home on the town’s Grand Parade. Leaf was aware that the dwellings to the east of the pier were in stark contrast to the hotels, houses and apartments occupied by the wealthy; and he noticed that the occupants were largely unemployed and virtually destitute when the holidaymakers, that the resort’s trade relied upon, left at the end of the season. Wishing to alleviate poverty and, more importantly for Leaf, keep the idle out of the pubs, he persuaded William Cavendish, the 7th Duke of Devonshire and the town’s largest landowner, to donate a space where Leaf could build a venue to sustain and educate the working classes.<br />
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The architect was Robert Blessley, who also designed Eastbourne’s Grand Hotel, and construction began in 1863. The building’s commanding exterior was intended to inspire reverence in its users and, once inside, respect for its lecture hall, library and reading room. Books could be borrowed for tuppence a week, at a time when the town had no public library, and penny lectures could accommodate audiences of up to 200. But the focus was not just improvement: there was also a large kitchen and serving room and, in the harsh winters of the 1880s, Leaf Hall dispensed 3,000 pints of soup and 3,000 loaves each week.<br />
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Despite these philanthropic endeavours, the people Leaf most wanted to reach were put off by his support for the temperance movement. Allowing the Band of Hope and the Salvation Army to base themselves at the hall, attendance amongst working men dwindled and the building became a target for violence organised by local publicans keen to protect their trade. In fact, this was to be the start of the Eastbourne Riots (an oxymoron if ever there was one – or a Half Man Half Biscuit song) of the 1890s when Sunday processions by the Sally Army would be violently disrupted by paid hooligans and large crowds would gather to watch the spectacle.<br />
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As the new century began, Leaf Hall lost its missionary zeal and concentrated instead on being a proto-foodbank and a pre-NHS medical centre where local doctors provided free care to those who could not normally afford their fees. With the advent of the welfare state after the Second World War, Leaf Hall’s philanthropy became largely redundant; although now, in the twenty-first century, the town is hosting a foodbank again.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-22458121081073551772020-01-19T18:05:00.001+00:002020-01-19T18:05:47.432+00:00One Tree Hill<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2hmM-C4__YyWKKxp-KYkTO6-p-my9s-XZ6Hr2df9SCKmgEI5Y6rSyUDZPvZXslLffk_B5NOcekXo99EdxFLSCOtjr01FjitOIHZ5bCxoaLfJ7paz7CauvH3ofUzEzj0xqPyoQ9CEYIWg/s1600/One+Tree+Hill.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj2hmM-C4__YyWKKxp-KYkTO6-p-my9s-XZ6Hr2df9SCKmgEI5Y6rSyUDZPvZXslLffk_B5NOcekXo99EdxFLSCOtjr01FjitOIHZ5bCxoaLfJ7paz7CauvH3ofUzEzj0xqPyoQ9CEYIWg/s320/One+Tree+Hill.jpg" width="239" height="320" data-original-width="765" data-original-height="1024" /></a><br />
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High up to my right, I can see the oak on One Tree Hill, its shape unbalanced by the constant battering of the south-westerlies that curve across the Downs and pick up speed as they race inland. At this time of year, with animals in their winter quarters and walkers in their towns and cities, the tree is once again the solitary occupant of the hill. Despite its name, it is not so much a hill as a ridge or a barrow; lying between Lime End and Comphurst Farms, it runs parallel to the footpath behind Strawberry Field and shadows me as I make my way through the first hard morning frost of the winter. I have never seen it up close, but the tree has become a comfort to me; I feel its benevolence and protection whenever I pass and it has my admiration whether skeletal in winter or showing off the full bloom of its crown in high summer.<br />
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As the footpath rises, I can see beyond the hill to Flowers Green and the row of cottages behind the nursery’s now empty pumpkin field. Three summers ago, I worked in the garden of the house at the far end of the terrace, clearing nettles and brambles and cutting back hazel so that the owner could regain the view. Whether he felt the same pull of the lonely oak, I never had the chance to ask. He was rarely at home and was a late payer; I sensed that he was dissatisfied with my work as I was not engaged the following summer. His garden only stands out in my memory because a friend surprised me there one day: walking home, he had seen my vehicle outside and wandered in; we sat under the apple trees and shared my lunch.<br />
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Having, as usual, become disorientated on the Levels – the tributaries and irrigation channels continually diverting me from my objective – I abandon my plan to walk to the coast and turn and head for home by another route. At one point, the path is blocked by a tree freshly fallen in the week’s storms and I have to head across open fields. From a different perspective, the oak on One Tree Hill looks even more majestic and, when I approach it from a track that I am sure is not public (the spirit of Kinder Scout lives on), it is much larger than I imagined. Despite the sun now being as high as it will manage all day, the cattle trough in its shade is still topped with a sheet of ice and it feels a degree of two cooler up here than it did on the lower ground; the reality of its exposed position gives me a new respect for my sentinel tree.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-23162261259693264782019-12-30T08:10:00.000+00:002019-12-30T08:19:46.517+00:001979 Now<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x-5vtvP_2wz9U5c8TNdjDB6zSHjp2tH2V9-2_nvYPCrdjazmeNtktCtLnP8rEsaWVMA8yOYe1pmZn3BvBpPl_cy7cSsvrf1Cv9EBC-xad0LFy_oBpY3DdeyEVEPa7zQ7ITkINKXcPWo/s1600/Boris+Thatcher.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5x-5vtvP_2wz9U5c8TNdjDB6zSHjp2tH2V9-2_nvYPCrdjazmeNtktCtLnP8rEsaWVMA8yOYe1pmZn3BvBpPl_cy7cSsvrf1Cv9EBC-xad0LFy_oBpY3DdeyEVEPa7zQ7ITkINKXcPWo/s320/Boris+Thatcher.jpg" width="297" height="320" data-original-width="587" data-original-height="632" /></a><br />
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A couple of years ago, I started writing a novel set in 1977. This meant researching/refreshing my memory of the events and music of that year and, even when it was completed and then published, I didn’t stop. I carried on tracking time and as 2017 rolled into 2018 there were LPs from 1978 to dig out and play; this year, I’ve been enjoying a vintage age for music 40 years in arrears with all that 1979 has to offer by listening to LPs from The Cure, The Raincoats, Wire, The Fall (two), Skids, Tubeway Army, Siouxsie and the Banshees, Gang of Four, The Clash, Specials, PiL, Adam and the Ants, Joy Division, The Slits, Linton Kwesi Johnson, The Members and, of course, Bowie and Iggy.<br />
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Having said that, I don’t live entirely in the musical past: I buy a couple of dozen new albums annually and mostly see current bands live, with this year’s crop including Sleaford Mods, Yak, Rozi Plain, Fontaines DC, The Stroppies, Cate Le Bon, Callum Easter, Chastity Belt, Vic Godard, Edwyn Collins, The Murder Capital and Kate Tempest; but I often feel that I didn’t appreciate the quality of the times I was living through in my youth and failed to pay enough attention. So, I’m paying attention now and it is well worth it.<br />
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1979 is arguably the finest year there has ever been for popular music of my taste but it also has some interesting political parallels with our current position. Then, as now, the leader of the country was a blonde maverick, adored by their supporters but loathed by their enemies, about to usher in a right-wing project – monetarism then, Brexit now – that would disproportionately damage the most vulnerable in society. Then, as probably now, they were at the start of a 10-year period of power that would transform the landscape of our country.<br />
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The difference is that Thatcher’s reign came after a time when eleven of the preceding fifteen years had seen Labour governments delivering liberal social reforms and legislating to enshrine employment rights and to support women, gay people and ethnic minority groups, measures that would offer some protection against the worst excesses of the free-market agenda. Unfortunately, the start of Johnson’s administration follows on from nine years of suffering that we have already had under Cameron and May’s austere Tory governments: NHS, education and local authority cuts; hostile environment; Universal Credit; and no action on climate change, homelessness and racism. With all this as the foundation, I think that what we are in for in the twenties will be much worse than what we endured in the eighties.<br />
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I have no solutions to offer of my own. Once again, just as in 1979, people of my class have voted in large numbers for a Conservative Party that does not have their best interests at heart. All I can do is put my faith in the hope that the Labour Party stops eating itself and holds the government closely to account; that, and turn up the music. Happy New Year.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-37655879663386753832019-11-14T12:07:00.000+00:002019-11-14T15:40:14.647+00:00Enduring Spirit<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTVNv5ueTr33jSkN5LFdL83PeVa22tZlyLSOj-v8JeA9HOIHopYc3AH0jEw4MaaUiLpF6TWCKBEbABqcGCGA9mJuQw_wPcvqW5x_NJ8i435auxXiObzQfgN-DdoJEXmsXwcMkFaTxvo8/s1600/Raincoats.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEivTVNv5ueTr33jSkN5LFdL83PeVa22tZlyLSOj-v8JeA9HOIHopYc3AH0jEw4MaaUiLpF6TWCKBEbABqcGCGA9mJuQw_wPcvqW5x_NJ8i435auxXiObzQfgN-DdoJEXmsXwcMkFaTxvo8/s320/Raincoats.jpg" width="320" height="221" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1104" /></a><br />
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On tour to celebrate the 40th anniversary of their eponymous debut LP, The Raincoats should be assured of its legacy if last night's gig at the Komedia in Brighton was anything to go by. Amongst the expected middle-aged audience was a healthy contingent of young people - and young women in particular - and they seemed to know the words to the songs as well as us oldies. Part of that may be down to the album's enthusiastic endorsement by the late Kurt Cobain and Courtney Love's Hole covering one of their songs; but even that was 25 years ago so I like to think it's more an enduring spirit that has been handed down through punk and riot grrrl and still has currency today.<br />
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The Raincoats were born from the west London squatting scene of the late seventies: inspired by The Slits, Gina Birch (bass and vocals) and Ana da Silva (guitar and vocals) started the band having met at Hornsey Art College. After some initial line-up changes, they became an all-female group in 1978 when they were joined by Vicky Aspinall on violin and Palmolive from The Slits on drums. They started from a point of little musical ability but were undeterred: as Gina advised last night, "write some lyrics, put them to a couple of chords - but be inventive." And The Raincoats were: at a time when so many bands were opting for rama-lama punk as a template, they were different and surprising; it was no wonder that disillusioned Pistol John Lydon was an early fan.<br />
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Only Ana and Gina from the line-up that recorded <i>The Raincoats</i> were present last night - Anne Wood and Vice Cooler were on violin and drums, respectively - as they played the original LP in its entirety book-ended with outstanding debut single Fairytale in the Supermarket at the start and songs from the <i>Extended Play</i> EP at the end. Still sounding angular and lo-fi but with uplifting harmonies, they worked through the tracks chronologically and it was a joy to hear songs such as Off Duty Trip, The Void and, my particular favourite, the Velvety nag of the discomfiting In Love, with its lyrics of turmoil: "I can't do a thing today/I can't see anyway/I haven't eaten all day." I last saw the band in early 1980 at the Electric Ballroom in Camden and it was such a treat to hear them live again, not in a nostalgic way but as confirmation that in the era of my youth there were people producing such distinctive and life-affirming music.<br />
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Charming and disarming in their interactions with the audience, the band were candid about the demands of playing live: Ana revealed the difficulty of getting their cover of The Kinks' Lola right (they did) and Gina, switching to guitar for a couple of songs, confessed that it was hard to sing when playing the bass. It was just this sort of honesty that made The Raincoats so refreshing and opened up the way in music for countless others. The honesty continued to the end of the night when Ana said, "This is the last song, we're not pretending, we have no encore, we have no more songs." And as they took a bow to rapturous applause, they were joined onstage by 'fifth-Beatle' Shirley O'Loughlin, The Raincoats' manager since the start.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-69256200449307536462019-10-22T16:38:00.000+01:002019-10-24T10:37:40.722+01:00Wise Heads<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmyRN-Xzr415gDRqHZuP-MDQaiV1M3SlmjFgMBnoUDYnLlqkKg54-XDbs7_U_wfIZ3PJ-2GLaTLBJru4zZ0TcgxbIFAcAwedvBve0unpSrIIUv_1KUuD3X3ZS8sWgb2zKdAgyd6anvHA/s1600/Chastity+Belt+Patterns.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgjmyRN-Xzr415gDRqHZuP-MDQaiV1M3SlmjFgMBnoUDYnLlqkKg54-XDbs7_U_wfIZ3PJ-2GLaTLBJru4zZ0TcgxbIFAcAwedvBve0unpSrIIUv_1KUuD3X3ZS8sWgb2zKdAgyd6anvHA/s320/Chastity+Belt+Patterns.jpg" width="320" height="248" data-original-width="680" data-original-height="527" /></a><br />
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For quite some time now my late night listening has invariably been <i>I Used To Spend So Much Time Alone</i>, the 2017 album by Chastity Belt. Its understated guitar tones and introspective lyrics are perfect for that time of the day when everyone has gone to bed and the house is finally quiet. This year's eponymously titled successor is already set to follow suit as a midnight favourite.<br />
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The Seattle four-piece - Julia Shapiro (guitar and lead vocals), Lydia Lund (guitar and vocals), Annie Truscott (bass and vocals) and Gretchen Grimm (drums and vocals) - are actually on their fourth album, the first two being more rooted in the sound of Washington state's Riot Grrrl movement. On stage at Patterns in Brighton last night, coming towards the end of a 19-date European tour, that experience showed as they delivered a brilliant and hypnotic set mainly drawn from this year's release, but with a few diversions back into their third album.<br />
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Music magazine <i>Louder Than War</i> called Chastity Belt 'the spiritual granddaughters of the mighty Raincoats' but they have a more accomplished sound than those art-punk legends and on songs such as It Takes Time, Drown and Ann's Jam the harmonised vocals and the delicate guitar interplay between Shapiro and Lund put their sound somewhere between The Sundays and The Durutti Column; and underlining their ability, Shapiro and Grimm swapped roles for Stuck and Apart in the middle of the set.<br />
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When 2017's Different Now, probably their breakthrough track, was played towards the end, the crowd sang along to the guitar motif which made Shapiro smile. The song's lyrics are empowering and forward-looking - 'You'll find in time/All the answers that you seek' - but they can also be reflective and, when they sang 'When you were young/Nothing ever turns out like you think' on Elena, wistful; but mostly I was left with the impression that these women have wise heads on young shoulders. They finished the night with Pissed Pants, the new album's final track and the closest they came to rocking out.<br />
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Earlier in the evening we were treated to the lo-fi guitar pop of Sad Girls Club, who surprised us with a fun cover of Britney Spears' Toxic. They were followed by Gang, whose half an hour on stage seemed to consist of one song, or it could have been twelve such was the variety of time signatures on offer; they also had a nice line in Monty Python vocals.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-51295625310256265432019-09-12T12:53:00.000+01:002019-09-12T15:03:00.976+01:00What Presence<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpHMTW-QCZuWhcMCWFEtmmb-ORteQe5b3rFq5HZtSA_lv5WjsRu4fFbJAUKq9VGkCZMn4qNftms_gN1cjl4w69zdBrXCmosSWpWPX0lHXGTyxrTTJQ7Wr1gzYTXV_w8X2WLFqm9fjuTTo/s1600/edwyn+2.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpHMTW-QCZuWhcMCWFEtmmb-ORteQe5b3rFq5HZtSA_lv5WjsRu4fFbJAUKq9VGkCZMn4qNftms_gN1cjl4w69zdBrXCmosSWpWPX0lHXGTyxrTTJQ7Wr1gzYTXV_w8X2WLFqm9fjuTTo/s320/edwyn+2.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a><br />
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There can be nothing more uplifting than the presence of a smiling and laughing Edwyn Collins, 14 years on from a life-changing stroke, on stage in Brighton last night as he and his band ran through a spellbinding set of songs that stretched all the way from Orange Juice's debut single to his current solo album. Despite being left with a physical weakness on his right side and asphasia that has slowed his speech, Edwyn has not stopped making music and performing live; and a happy upside to his condition is that his singing voice is as robust and fluent as ever.<br />
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Opening with the up-tempo title track from 2010's <i>Losing Sleep</i>, and following with the punky Outside from this year's <i>Badbea</i>, told us that this would be a rousing evening and the sound was excellent from the start. When your band has as its core long-time writing and recording collaborators Carwyn Ellis (bass) and Sean Read (keys/sax) from Colorama and The Rockingbirds, respectively, and is augmented by Andy Hackett (another Rockingbird) and Barrie Cadogan from Little Barrie on guitars, you know you're in safe hands.<br />
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The set quickly dipped back into Edwyn's Orange Juice past with a sublime version of What Presence?! from the band's final LP and there were further treats from that era: that trio of Postcard Records singles from 1980 - Falling and Laughing, Blue Boy and Simply Thrilled Honey - as well as I Guess I'm Just A Little Too Sensitive, the glorious Rip It Up and In A Nutshell from 1982's classic LP, <i>You Can't Hide Your Love Forever</i>. But it was another track from that album that reminded me how tender and sophisticated Edwyn's Orange Juice songs were. Intuition Told Me Part 1 may only be a minute long but it's lyrics - "smiled lopsidedly, decidedly awkward, he asked her" - can melt your heart in that time.<br />
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Between the songs from the Orange Juice days and half a dozen tracks from the classy new album - particularly It's All About You and I Guess We Were Young - there were other gems: In Your Eyes, from <i>Losing Sleep</i>, which saw Edwyn's son William come on stage to sing The Drums' Jonathan Pierce's part; early solo single, the rocking Don't Shilly Shally; the poignant recuperation song, Home Again; and, of course, A Girl Like You, which was introduced playfully and with good humour by Edwyn, as every song throughout a wonderful evening had been.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-81709003563276213202019-08-18T07:52:00.000+01:002019-08-18T07:52:23.195+01:00True Faith<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpX5kzwnxziP57j8CsYJEI6j0fURfxynAzKq29sp_-ZszHl7dUYHl_yWYPmqjLaV2foQzsyCVJ7X-JN4oq7tqdzH3dLL1wYwpQ26GESxtnguvb1jMN6A9xfJPeqaeiksxd2EuTCQXhtbI/s1600/Millwall+72.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjpX5kzwnxziP57j8CsYJEI6j0fURfxynAzKq29sp_-ZszHl7dUYHl_yWYPmqjLaV2foQzsyCVJ7X-JN4oq7tqdzH3dLL1wYwpQ26GESxtnguvb1jMN6A9xfJPeqaeiksxd2EuTCQXhtbI/s320/Millwall+72.jpg" width="320" height="214" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="684" /></a><br />
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I’ve hardly written about football since I started this blog. Before then, I probably thought about my team as often as men are supposed to think about sex; but these days, when it comes to football, I am the possessor of a long-held personal faith rather than someone who regularly and devoutly practices an organised religion. I’m a bit like that about sex, too. However, I have been prompted to reflect on my association with football because 30th August will mark the fiftieth anniversary of my first match at The Den to watch Millwall. That day, taken by my dad at the age of seven because I had started to express a fondness for the black and white striped shirts of Newcastle United from pictures in the newspaper, we lost one-nil to Leicester City and I left the ground feeling unimpressed by what I had seen; but it was to be the start of a relationship with a club that has at times defined me, has often exhilarated me but has also, on occasions, made me downright bloody miserable.<br />
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I am a third-generation Millwall supporter: my paternal grandad began attending matches in 1910 when the club relocated from the Isle of Dogs to a site south of the River Thames near his home in New Cross; he started taking his son to games in the 1930s and my dad would tell me regularly of the great FA Cup run of 1937 that saw Third Division South Millwall defeat Chelsea, Derby County and Manchester City - all First Division clubs – in front of 40,000 plus crowds at The Den before losing in the semi-final to Sunderland.<br />
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After that first match in 1969, I went to most home games with my dad (apart from the 1970/71 season when he disappeared for a year) until I started going with my mates in 75/76. That season was also my first as a season ticket holder - something that I continued up until I moved out of London in 2005 – and was remarkable because it was my first taste of success with promotion to Division Two and it was achieved, in no small part, thanks to the contributions of two skilful young black players, Trevor Lee and Phil Walker, who had been signed from non-league early in the season. This was a rarity then and predated West Brom’s ground-breaking trio of black signings by a couple of years; it was a bold and progressive move by the club and sent out a positive message to the local community at a time when the National Front was on the rise.<br />
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From the mid-seventies, my dad attended matches sporadically – I think he felt he had successfully handed on the baton of support – with his last game being the final one at the old Den in 1993 before the club moved to a new all-seater stadium a quarter of a mile away. He did get to see them play in the top flight – the day we won promotion to the old First Division at Hull City in 1988 I went straight from Boothferry Park (well, via the pub) to his house and we stayed up until the early hours celebrating – but he never saw them at Wembley. When Millwall finally got to play at the original Wembley Stadium in the Auto Windscreens Shield Final against Wigan in 1999, he was nearing the end of his life in a nursing home; but he was lucid enough to read the programme and look at the photographs I took for him on the day.<br />
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These days Millwall never seem to stop playing at the new Wembley and those play-off finals, and the 2004 FA Cup Final at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff against Manchester United, are probably the peaks for a Millwall supporter. Although, my fondest memories are not necessarily those that resulted in success: I can still remember the names of the whole of the white-kitted 71/72 team and recall the dazzling football of Possee and Bridges that year more than I can remember the ache of disappointment when we missed promotion to Division 1 by a single point at the season’s end; and I’ll never forget taking the lead at Anfield, when we were finally in the First Division, and singing, “We’re gonna win the League”, to the amusement and bemusement of the home crowd.<br />
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Of course, there have been more troughs than peaks and for most of us the trials of being a Millwall supporter have not been confined solely to disappointments on the pitch. Travelling to away games, the police assume the worst of you and the inhabitants of every town or city you arrive in seem to want to kill you. I can’t think why. My most intense period of following Millwall away from home was in the 80s: at the end of the decade because we were playing all the big teams, at the start of the decade - when we were terrible - out of a perverted sense of loyalty. There was some sort of badge of honour to be earned from travelling to Plymouth for a night match, arriving late at half-time to find Millwall already one-nil up and then watching them capitulate to three home goals in the second-half before making the long journey back to London; or going to Newport County in January only to dish out abuse to your own disgraceful journeyman players, Sam Allardyce amongst them, who were all kicked out when George Graham took over as manager a few weeks later and saved us from relegation to Division Four; or being one of less than 50 fellow-travellers making the 600 mile round trip to Carlisle for a meaningless late-season game. <br />
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Now I no longer live in London, time and money means I only get to a handful of matches a season; and I’m having trouble handing the baton on to the fourth generation. Of my three kids, only my youngest son showed an interest in coming with me to games but his enthusiasm waned. It didn’t help that he started going when we had season after season of relegation battles in the Championship; in fact, he was eight when he first saw Millwall play but a combination of poor form and irregular attendance meant he was eleven when he first saw them win a match. Now he is older, his interest is returning and he says he wants to go this season; he was born in south-east London and, when he has so many peers at school who support Liverpool and Man City only because they are successful, he understands that Millwall means something to him.<br />
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We won’t be at the home game on 31st August against Hull to celebrate my 50th year as a Millwall supporter: a lack of forward planning means I’m already committed to spending the weekend in a field somewhere in Wiltshire drinking cider and listening to live music; but we will be at The Den for the anniversary of my second match. That was a couple of weeks later against Carlisle United and it was also the debut of eighteen-year-old Londoner Doug Allder on the left wing for Millwall. He tormented the Carlisle defence that day and created most of the goals as we came from behind in an exciting match to win 4-2 with the crowd roaring in full voice; and as cross after cross came in, a seven-year-old boy, behind the goal at the Ilderton Road end with his dad, was converted.<br />
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*The picture at the top shows Millwall supporters on the pitch after the final home game of the 1971/72 season against Preston. News of promotion rivals Birmingham's defeat had led us to believe we had been promoted to Division One. It turned out to be false and Birmingham went on to win their game in hand at Orient and were promoted instead. I am in the photograph at the bottom in the middle facing away from the celebration.</i><br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-24167622366041385462019-07-18T12:15:00.000+01:002019-07-18T12:28:50.448+01:00Style and Substance<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj61LqELv9geCBFUkmgz2JcYl72xl8SVg0tTT3K1iPCIWn8QGGNfHI63CXqq-BZTMFsXt5nb9mKq5-0BzIr2huwcIzn6zuczx_iX2eRGQDBgnck8-ZzK324QEqh8xrKnS6k3d7CXVbT5wg/s1600/Stroppies.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj61LqELv9geCBFUkmgz2JcYl72xl8SVg0tTT3K1iPCIWn8QGGNfHI63CXqq-BZTMFsXt5nb9mKq5-0BzIr2huwcIzn6zuczx_iX2eRGQDBgnck8-ZzK324QEqh8xrKnS6k3d7CXVbT5wg/s320/Stroppies.jpg" width="320" height="211" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="791" /></a><br />
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Without wanting to pigeonhole bands according to their geography - as I have done <a href="https://sussexsedition.blogspot.com/2018/10/geography.html">before</a> - I felt that watching Melbourne's The Stroppies at the Hope and Ruin in Brighton last night they are bound to repeat the sort of success that other musicians from that Australian city are currently experiencing here. With their lo-fi pop melodies wedded to a tight slacker (there's an oxymoron for you) guitar sound, they were a joy to behold and struck up an easy rapport with the audience right from the start.<br />
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Rory Heane's skittering drums signalled the opening of Nothing At All from this year's album, <i>Whoosh!</i> and the majority of the new LP formed the set that followed. Dually fronted by bassist Claudia Serfaty and guitarist Angus Lord, their twin vocals are understated and fit perfectly with the choppy rhythms and Adam Hewitt's sparkling lead guitar. Serfaty's basslines are the key to their best songs, particularly on Present Tense and the outstanding My Style, My Substance; and where Lord's 60s garage keyboards feature, such as on Go Ahead, one of a clutch of songs from 2017's eponymous debut album, the songs are lifted to another level.<br />
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The band looked as though they were really enjoying themselves and finished all too quickly with Cellophane Car, a long-form Velvets/Modern Lovers epic that has a hint of Subway Sect's Farfisa-tinged Ambition about it. Despite calls for an encore, Lord pleaded that they had no more songs they could play; it struck me that the next number I hear from them will not be played in such an intimate venue.<br />
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The promoters, Love Thy Neighbour, had put together a great line-up and earlier we were treated to impressive and powerful trio, Hanya, and the kitsch and quirky Porridge Radio off-shoot, SUEP.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-9504297827307561032019-06-30T18:22:00.001+01:002019-06-30T18:25:01.531+01:00I'll Be There<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwayQMNFMqqRAyK2B_5QpUxxxR9GIJgHyC9KSPbFeqHxFxhP_hbGr6OxG3E32Ks1vL2Bzv3ftx__YHT4Mp_3VkaRhYe6ZR29EZPEmwxkZA2sBq9jgFKCnPaxGeKpZk82RdAmGPBvdRkis/s1600/Lex+Vic.png" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjwayQMNFMqqRAyK2B_5QpUxxxR9GIJgHyC9KSPbFeqHxFxhP_hbGr6OxG3E32Ks1vL2Bzv3ftx__YHT4Mp_3VkaRhYe6ZR29EZPEmwxkZA2sBq9jgFKCnPaxGeKpZk82RdAmGPBvdRkis/s320/Lex+Vic.png" width="320" height="202" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="757" /></a><br />
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At the end of the hottest day of the year, when I should have been outdoors drinking ice-cold cider under a cooling Sussex sky, I found myself in the sweltering city, suffering the suffocating Northern Line and heading for an upstairs room at The Lexington pub on Pentonville Road. There are not many things that could make me undertake such a blood-boiling journey but a triple bill of Vic Godard and the Subway Sect, Callum Easter and The Shadracks is such a pull that I had to be there.<br />
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The Shadracks' raw rhythms showed off their Childish Medway roots as they beguiled us with a short, blistering set. Sickeningly young, the trio's three-minute shards of proto-punk showed a knowledge of 20th century noise that belies their years. When they finished with a cover of Alternative TV's Splitting In 2, it sent me straight to the merch stall to buy their LP, where I was harangued by one of their fans who said I should be buying two of their 7" singles, as well; one contained covers of two X-Ray Spex songs, just to underline The Shadracks' punk rock lineage.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYmvCqiKpt-nP6qxYgbFXXjuC3pdgO_XaDxCi8JXzRRzhWdMa9OqAlIhsECeUkND4JKijSDZSXb6CbNvxlWBNvCpP0b3U5sHu7U_ky4o9wY_R1fZjM2wvR5Qw21x5gA0lqeZ-q2tB_AU/s1600/Lex+Shadracks.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgsYmvCqiKpt-nP6qxYgbFXXjuC3pdgO_XaDxCi8JXzRRzhWdMa9OqAlIhsECeUkND4JKijSDZSXb6CbNvxlWBNvCpP0b3U5sHu7U_ky4o9wY_R1fZjM2wvR5Qw21x5gA0lqeZ-q2tB_AU/s320/Lex+Shadracks.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="900" /></a><br />
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Callum Easter is a different proposition altogether: I've been playing his <i>Here or Nowhere</i> LP since it came out on Lost Map records in April and have been entranced by his sparse and ethereal tunes and ghostly vocals. Based in Edinburgh, but hailing from Dunbar, Easter was part of The Stagger Rats and worked with Young Fathers before going solo. He was alone onstage and replicated the fluid forms of his album with accordion and drum machine and, on one song only, guitar. The bass drone of the accordion underpinned each song and the haunting title track was a standout. The songs are dark and intense and, up-lit by a solitary spotlight, Easter struck an austere figure and his incredible set pitched him somewhere between Nico and Suicide.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKvASkwE68CIoovmFGo5stTtXIOxd4yUzEvotYIDhQ-QAHnh7SRFypVBIO7eLd4PxCx32WQIU3iMkCKOwE88-_gXPWOxXdz80AziVQsz2cEKN6ktB8iqWcYnLw9JbEzjtQdSj0ZoPg7E/s1600/Lex+Callum.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgaKvASkwE68CIoovmFGo5stTtXIOxd4yUzEvotYIDhQ-QAHnh7SRFypVBIO7eLd4PxCx32WQIU3iMkCKOwE88-_gXPWOxXdz80AziVQsz2cEKN6ktB8iqWcYnLw9JbEzjtQdSj0ZoPg7E/s320/Lex+Callum.jpg" width="320" height="270" data-original-width="1200" data-original-height="1013" /></a><br />
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It was a Vic Godard tweet that first alerted me to Callum Easter after he had supported Subway Sect in Edinburgh late last year and it was Vic that brought him down to London for this gig. Last night, the ever-changing Sect line-up featured, amongst others, Johnny Britton on guitar, Simon Rivers from The Bitter Springs on keys and Vic in a Die Hard Bruce Willis white vest. This was the second time I had seen Vic since his retirement from the Post, and he has never seemed happier on stage - even if he over-exerted himself at times - and the band have never sounded better. This year's brilliant LP, <i>Mums' Revenge</i>, featured heavily: the set opened with Neil Palmer Woz There, on which ex-Bitter Spring Neil read his poem about illness and love, with its heart-rending refrain of 'I'll be there', over Vic's 2017 single Can't Take The Sunshine Away; and I'll Find Out Over Time, Flash The Magic Sign and Inertia were testament to the current strength of Vic's songwriting. To prove that this has always been the case, we also got old favourites Stop That Girl and Double Negative, one of the earliest Subway Sect songs; the line in the latter, 'they want the keys to the city, watch them fumble for the keys to their car', made me think of those incompetent politicians vying to take the most powerful job in the land. When Vic introduced Inertia as 'our Set The Controls For The Heart Of The Sun', time was running out and I had to set the controls for the heart of East Sussex and leave early to subject myself to the heat of the tube and the haphazardness of Southern Railway.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-79550943056377742982019-05-27T16:40:00.001+01:002019-05-27T16:51:13.060+01:00Help Is On The Way<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVdo63fSCDdvUjMBkQOaJfXCNiY8LrNz2W0eZDQWnBc7y9rDiJetndzxiK4ZYcA7gBF6PkUPt2Esnf8dO2BZTpufMD-WeLkObzakRS0s80AQOQ7Rx5lgwEQQAUijebVaVI43tKOYnugg/s1600/BSP+Lewes+2+%25282%2529.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVdo63fSCDdvUjMBkQOaJfXCNiY8LrNz2W0eZDQWnBc7y9rDiJetndzxiK4ZYcA7gBF6PkUPt2Esnf8dO2BZTpufMD-WeLkObzakRS0s80AQOQ7Rx5lgwEQQAUijebVaVI43tKOYnugg/s320/BSP+Lewes+2+%25282%2529.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a><br />
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When I saw British Sea Power play <a href="https://sussexsedition.blogspot.com/2016/06/welcome-in.html">the night before the EU referendum in 2016</a>, their anthem of welcome and tolerance, Waving Flags, raised the roof and the hopes of those of us keen to embrace the continuing spirit of acceptance at the ballot box the next day. We all know how that worked out.<br />
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Three years on, at the Con Club in Lewes last night, it was a rare outing for the lead track from 2011's <i>Valhalla Dancehall</i> album that seemed to catch the political zeitgeist as Yan spat out the chorus "I just don't know/Who's In Control" with a mixture of genuine anger and confusion. Not that anyone can provide an answer in these troubled times but at least a British Sea Power gig in a small sweaty club afforded me the cathartic opportunity to drink beer, dance and bellow along in my own bewilderment.<br />
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With a crystal clear sound, the band served up their special mix of the raucous and the tender. Remember Me and No Lucifer were rowdy and the appearance of Ursine Ultra, the dancing bear, and Noble's stage climbing added a chaotic dimension to proceedings. The highlights of the set, for me, were two more recent songs: A Light Above Descending and Praise For Whatever were passionate and poignant, the latter being the outstanding track from 2017's <i>Let The Dancers Inherit The Party</i> album with an outro reminiscent of Bear from 2010's <i>Zeus</i> EP.<br />
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The rousing finale of The Great Skua, with an EU flag being waved in the mosh pit, was life-affirming, as always; but I had probably already taken most comfort from the optimistic refrain, "Help is on the way", in set opener, Machineries of Joy. Until that help arrives, at least we have British Sea Power.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-80004342209810589862019-04-21T16:04:00.001+01:002019-07-18T12:20:03.044+01:00Always Different<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUB6nIUFjngpZUcrvgHqqRUlk9FDyH_N-UYB36q9upF1hNat6drWapYHYtwHNa_HG9K0xACQS8NaMr9bwCgVJzMARH3FWPk6i77w1PjLgyPauBpwNSyPiFRl00hhF_O8fJrxLnoAfFBY/s1600/Sleaford.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiNUB6nIUFjngpZUcrvgHqqRUlk9FDyH_N-UYB36q9upF1hNat6drWapYHYtwHNa_HG9K0xACQS8NaMr9bwCgVJzMARH3FWPk6i77w1PjLgyPauBpwNSyPiFRl00hhF_O8fJrxLnoAfFBY/s320/Sleaford.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a><br />
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Expletive, splenetic, compulsive, balletic; it was glorious to revel in the incongruity of Sleaford Mods in Bexhill-on-Sea last night, bringing their dissatisfaction with the contradictions of modern Britain to the genteel coastal town.<br />
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It had been four years since I last saw them <a href="http://sussexsedition.blogspot.com/2015/05/soul-music.html">live</a>, prompted by 2014's <i>Divide and Exit</i> album, but I had tracked their subsequent progress through the consistently excellent <i>Key Markets</i>, <i>English Tapas</i> and this year's <i>Eton Alive</i>. Seeing them again reaffirmed that there is no one like Sleaford Mods and it brought to mind John Peel's aphorism about The Fall: always different, always the same.<br />
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The range of targets is as wide as ever: on Flipside, from the latest album, "Graham Coxon looks like a left-wing Boris Johnson" and on TCR, "Everyone still looks like Ena Sharples and Ray Reardon". If the similes make us laugh, songs like BHS, with its condemnation of the greed of capitalists like (Sir) Philip Green - "the able-bodied vultures monitor and pick at us" - make us as angry as Jason Williamson. But if the number of 'fucks' and 'cunts' are testament to the power of his polemic, the vitriolic language is offset by Williamson's mesmerising stage presence: his restless pacing, his menacing of the mic and his strangely graceful arm movements.<br />
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Amidst this performance, Andrew Fearn sways and swigs with a big smile on his face as he takes care of the laptop beats that drive along the stage-front moshing; I have very occasionally seen crowd-surfing at the De La Warr Pavilion but I have NEVER seen beer sprayed around with the reckless abandon that Sleaford Mods prompted. Although there were favourites such as Jolly Fucker, Jobseeker and Tied Up In Nottz to keep the crowd happy, the focus was on <i>Eton Alive</i>, and the final track of the night, Discourse, perhaps pointed the way to a funkier future.<br />
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Support, last night, was provided by excellent Mancunian female trio, Liines, whose short and snappy post-punk songs, underpinned by rumbling bass and thudding tom toms, persuaded a large crowd to leave the bar and encourage a talented young band.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-9360673043308131292019-03-26T14:54:00.002+00:002019-03-26T16:23:03.388+00:00Yin and Yang<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22fsFn7Nf1TCjl_R1MFEZ1exKUtEhEcgrZXadypqa9WRlZWXTV4GK8uXOcEEzSE_SEl_C2isCcOEsrPDHz7z7ShrHBAofAfacTqSXHQC7LP-uLC0Oot7Bi21yWYjq2xROinjHhLJXRF4/s1600/Pratt.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi22fsFn7Nf1TCjl_R1MFEZ1exKUtEhEcgrZXadypqa9WRlZWXTV4GK8uXOcEEzSE_SEl_C2isCcOEsrPDHz7z7ShrHBAofAfacTqSXHQC7LP-uLC0Oot7Bi21yWYjq2xROinjHhLJXRF4/s320/Pratt.jpg" width="291" height="320" data-original-width="932" data-original-height="1024" /></a><br />
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Driving westwards on Monday evening, I was listening to <i>Quiet Signs</i>, the third album by American folk singer Jessica Pratt. With the rising silhouette of the landscape ahead of me, defined by a line of burnished ochre left in the sky by the setting sun, I could have been forgiven for thinking I was approaching the Mohave Mountains and Pratt's home state of California beyond; but I wasn't: I was passing the Sussex Downs on my way to Brighton to see Pratt play her first gig there since 2015.<br />
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Pratt is keen to not be pigeonholed as a traditional folk singer in the mould of Joan Baez or Joni Mitchell and it is true that her claustrophobic songs and affected vocal style have more in common with modern gothic folk artists, such as Marissa Nadler and Aldous Harding; but there is something about the intensity and purity of her songs that harks back to another age. With only Matthew McDermott on a Korg to accompany her voice and acoustic chords, the audience was silently spellbound throughout a set of sparse sounds that selected tracks from all three of her albums. Standouts for me were As The World Turns, from her latest album, and Opening Night, a hypnotic piano movement with wordless vocals, named after the 1977 John Cassavetes film that inspired it.<br />
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Support at the Brighthelm Centre - a modern church that I had only previously been in for a trade union meeting but never a gig - could not have been more different. Provided by Saul Adamczewski of Fat White Family, The Moonlandingz and Insecure Men, it was the yang to Pratt's yin. Adamczewski said more between songs than the former's 'thank yous' and even berated us with a Casio dance tune "to liven you stiffs up". In a humorous set - "it's good to be with you in the house of Our Lord" - of acoustic songs augmented by fellow-Fat White Alex White's saxophone, Adamczewski referenced demons of the twentieth century ranging from Goebbels to Gazza via Charles Manson (I might have been a bit unfair on Paul Gascoigne, there). The song Sweet Agony was introduced as being about Paul Sykes, a legendary Wakefield hardman. This gave me a start: taken from the title of his 1988 autobiographical novel, I'll wager that I was the only other person, in a roomful of people come to hear Pratt's quiet meditations, to have read Sykes' Arthur Koestler Literary Award-winning tale of boxing, robbery and battles with the prison authorities. Truly, an evening of joyful contrasts.<br />
Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-7762341767266454152019-02-28T18:37:00.001+00:002019-03-01T07:46:55.371+00:00Still I Rise<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPkekqjaaz4CeNqK9PHwlRvGKIlCROJKGOCnk5OWpcrGdmh-pa_3z9oXfd0LYK0v8FsBEOR1U7iFLFetrwFewmCWrxZoP1V2LM8KFyI1F98lF2spnkZwWVNIBpvh2AmrULbqZSit0Y-Y/s1600/disappeared.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBPkekqjaaz4CeNqK9PHwlRvGKIlCROJKGOCnk5OWpcrGdmh-pa_3z9oXfd0LYK0v8FsBEOR1U7iFLFetrwFewmCWrxZoP1V2LM8KFyI1F98lF2spnkZwWVNIBpvh2AmrULbqZSit0Y-Y/s320/disappeared.jpg" width="320" height="192" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="960" /></a><br />
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Taking its title from Maya Angelou's poem of defiance, a text I have used over the years to try and expose the monocultural GCSE students of rural East Sussex to issues of difference, <i>Still I Rise</i> is an exhibition at the De La Warr Pavilion that explores the history of resistance and alternative forms of living through the prism of gender. Covering a wide range of forms, from art to architecture and graphic design to photography, it is a cornucopia of feminist and gay protest and perspectives.<br />
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The display of black and white photographs at the front of the gallery sets the tone with images of mass street demonstrations, including a series from the 1990s in support of disability rights. This is followed by a wall of posters produced by grassroots feminist and queer movements, amongst them the iconic 1975 'So long as women are not free the people are not free' poster by the See Red Women's Workshop.<br />
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An area that I had previously been unaware of was use of the built environment to explore feminist ways of living. In the centre of the gallery space is a model of communitarian socialist architect Alice Constance Austin's 1910 design for common dwelling and working. Austin believed that single-family units were a barrier to improving life for women, a theme carried on in the 1980s by the Matrix Feminist Design Co-operative in London and Birmingham, whose ideas are presented in 3-D and on film. <br />
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In an age where protest seems to have been reborn with the Occupy movement, Black Lives Matter and #MeToo, it is timely to be reminded of the lineage of identity resistance - and there are also some pieces in the exhibition, such as early Stonewall AIDS awareness art, that show just how far we have come; but the most powerful images, for me, were Eduardo Gil's photographs of marches in early 1980s Argentina. The Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo were a collective of women whose children had 'disappeared' during the state terrorism of the fascist <i>junta</i> that ruled between 1976 and 1983. They were successful in exposing human rights violations and pressing successive governments for answers. The stark monochrome images are a vivid portrayal of the power of women, irrespective of age and class.<br />
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<i>Still I Rise: Feminisms, Gender, Resistance, Act 2 is at the De La Warr Pavilion, Bexhill-on-Sea until Monday 27th May. Admission is free.</i>Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-72124226092548218672019-01-25T18:25:00.000+00:002019-01-26T21:16:11.870+00:00Partners in Crime<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg8qQOm3lZFu9Gp3fYcfNZIaYK_17WxzhI_8B8CJSSU1G27yd-cdF_EWoGp07vaSl2A8wG1dRi85NWRlhby9vRkmuUSr1YhktU3LBdLjCCQ3SkfZcwhHuh-Bna1ebtk0GjaUN3eG9OQS8/s1600/Vic+and+Johnny.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgg8qQOm3lZFu9Gp3fYcfNZIaYK_17WxzhI_8B8CJSSU1G27yd-cdF_EWoGp07vaSl2A8wG1dRi85NWRlhby9vRkmuUSr1YhktU3LBdLjCCQ3SkfZcwhHuh-Bna1ebtk0GjaUN3eG9OQS8/s320/Vic+and+Johnny.jpg" width="292" height="320" data-original-width="934" data-original-height="1024" /></a><br />
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Not so much a gig, more a very enjoyable <i>Audience With</i>, as The Portable Club presented 'an evening of conversation and music starring Vic Godard with Johnny Britton' amidst the crushed velvet drapes of The Nightingale Room, upstairs at the Grand Central pub next to Brighton station, last night.<br />
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Vic needs no <a href="http://sussexsedition.blogspot.com/2013/04/wont-look-back.html">introduction</a> but Johnny perhaps does: a Bristolian who was guitarist in the second line-up of Subway Sect that toured with Buzzcocks in 1978, he later had his own band poached by Vic and The Clash's manager, Bernie "call me Bernard" Rhodes, for Vic's 1982 loungecore incarnation at the time of his <i>Songs For Sale</i> LP (that band, with Dig Wayne as singer, went on to become JoBoxers of Boxer Beat and Just Got Lucky chart fame); he then became a protégé of Rhodes, who thought Johnny's matinee idol good looks gave him star quality and, when his time with Rhodes fizzled out, he joined the final incarnation of Orange Juice - perhaps because when Edwyn looked at him it would have been like seeing his own reflection. Now reunited years later, ("I was in need of friendship" - Vic) there is no animosity on Johnny's part for losing his band to Vic and the two have an easy and affectionate rapport.<br />
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The evening began with the duo both on guitars and vocals and a couple of songs, starting with Vic's 1999 single, Place We Used To Live. An onstage interview then followed, which teased out some excellent stories about the pair's lives. Vic was on a £200 a week retainer from Bernie (who they both spoke of warmly, contrary to Rhodes' popular Svengali reputation) to write songs with the word 'girl' in them for Johnny, which he had to deliver at the rate of ten a week every Friday. Leaving it until the last minute, he stayed up all night on Thursdays recording them onto cassette very quietly, so as not to wake up his mum and dad; the result was Johnny could barely make out the hushed songs. The Portable Club's host, Algy, reminded us that Vic was arrested on the day of the Sex Pistols' infamous Silver Jubilee riverboat trip; but it turns out he was not on the boat but on Tower Bridge with The Slits, throwing stones at the pleasure cruiser as it passed below - I would have paid handsomely to have seen that.<br />
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Further brushes with the law followed in Vic's heroin years: forging cheques, scamming bookies and - a particular favourite - nicking Marks & Sparks carriage clocks were regular necessities to fund his habit. Later, Vic continued to release music regularly - but not exactly prolifically - against the backdrop of day jobs at Ladbrokes and the Post Office, while Johnny had an award-winning career as a costume designer for high-profile horror films.<br />
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When they returned to the music, we got covers of T.Rex's New York City and the Velvet Underground's Heroin and a song about Johnny's cat. There were then two of those songs with the word 'girl' in the title: firstly, Girl From Trincomalee (it's in Sri Lanka, in case you're wondering - we were asked but none of us knew) and, the final number of the night, Stop That Girl, from <i>T.R.O.U.B.L.E.</i>, Vic's 1986 Rough Trade album. Listening to the beauty and craft of that song, and to Johnny's effortless harmonising, it made me wish that the partnership that Rhodes tried to foster all those years ago, had resulted in more. Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-70007674549968217822018-12-31T06:59:00.000+00:002018-12-31T08:01:43.688+00:00As The Year Recedes<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiep-vOGMCxTSJwYp0qL-8ch3c0W74-R2L_j27wp9B3sh5GVcUg7qR6LOlpLiFTLApkmyDjL3k7LaScfcHocRzsKUAiL51BQqWHIUw5Lm4bSFfp1UrM3J92uDSgMAhp5udHl4RCDaisOM/s1600/Mist.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhiep-vOGMCxTSJwYp0qL-8ch3c0W74-R2L_j27wp9B3sh5GVcUg7qR6LOlpLiFTLApkmyDjL3k7LaScfcHocRzsKUAiL51BQqWHIUw5Lm4bSFfp1UrM3J92uDSgMAhp5udHl4RCDaisOM/s320/Mist.jpg" width="320" height="240" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="768" /></a><br />
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This blogpost should have been a review of Nadine Shah's December gig in Brighton but her tour was cancelled as she had to return to the North-East to be with her family. I am not sure of the exact reason but I sincerely hope it is not something too disastrous. Instead, as the year recedes, here are three things I learned in 2018:<br />
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<b>There Are No Grown-Ups</b> - In <i>Lord of the Flies</i>, when Piggy bleats that "Grown-ups know things...they ain't afraid of the dark. They'd meet and have tea and discuss. Then things 'ud be all right", he is showing a touching faith in the adult world to solve problems and act in the best interests of the little people. As we hurtle towards the EU exit door, spinning like a car on black ice (I appreciate that we are running out of similes for Brexit but this is one I have personal experience of and it was the most scared I have ever been), I have realised that I am Piggy no longer. Once upon a time, I was: as a child, I adored Harold Wilson (still do, really) and felt that no harm would come to my family all the while he was looking after things. Although I hated Margaret Thatcher and was not over-enamoured with Tony Blair, I still believed that they would act maturely and make decisions that they thought were for the best, even if I did not agree with them. And, oh, if sturdy Gordon Brown was still Prime Minister I am sure we would not be in this mess. Now I am Ralph; not Jack, who greets the lack of grown-ups on the island with all the glee of a rapacious hedge fund manager who has just realised how much money he can make if he says bollocks to the rules, but Ralph. Ralph the leader, whose nervousness and indecision are borne from the knowledge that no one else is going to come along and make things better. Our current Prime Minister is not a leader: she behaves like a civil servant who has been given a brief and has the job of delivering it no matter how ill-conceived the original idea; a leader would question the specification but she is too timorous to be honest with the British people. The Leader of the Opposition, still wedded to the fantasy that he could negotiate a better deal at the last minute, is being equally dishonest. And when you look around, there are absolutely no politicians that could salvage this situation as they are all too busy with their pettifogging party squabbles - "What's grown-ups going to say?"<br />
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<b>It's Never Too Late</b> (or <b>Write What You Know</b>) - Having spent a lifetime writing, I finally finished and published a novel this year. Freed from the shackles of full-time teaching, I was able to sit, hunched over a laptop in my kitchen corner, for long stretches while the kids were at school; but that was not the only reason I was able to make the sort of progress that had eluded me before: the difference, this time, was that I was enjoying what I was writing. If I am being honest, I only really have three strong ideas for novels; the one I had been working on for the last few years - an imagined tale involving the Modernist writer Malcolm Lowry and the tattooed curiosity, Horace Ridler - necessitated detailed research. This, coupled with the dense, literary prose style I had chosen to write in, made the whole process slow and, frankly, unenjoyable. One day, I decided to start writing my second idea, for which I had long ago produced a reasonably detailed plan. Set in 1977, with David Bowie, punk, the Jubilee and the Lewisham riot as context, the story charted the coming of age of a fifteen-year-old boy - all stuff I know about. Between October 2017 and April 2018 I wrote two drafts and then a final one and in September this year, two months after my fifty-sixth birthday, <i>When Two Sevens Clash</i> was published.<br />
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<b>You Have To Tell Them</b> - I have had cause for regret this year: I never told someone I was very close to that they were my best friend and I dearly wish I had. I think they knew but they have gone now - in tragic circumstances - and I have missed my chance. I am not sure that me telling them would have made a difference but it might have done. My New Year's resolution is to let those close to me know how important they are and how much they would be missed; I respectfully suggest you do the same.<br />
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Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-60390137770452239012018-11-26T15:03:00.000+00:002018-11-26T19:12:43.357+00:00Brilliant and Bizarre<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrt8F_hYt6NnL2FB0n5872c7yPTfEwx9xtj1bKyw3SXzhwyYGY_dSM7WDsfFhRe2-eGJdCGVHjVRzJff8LSznIBuNTTRYFG3V245Ygwwv9iJF4QM2LLE51Cdzulm4KRe-ZimEjUxVJ5zc/s1600/Lee+Perry.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhrt8F_hYt6NnL2FB0n5872c7yPTfEwx9xtj1bKyw3SXzhwyYGY_dSM7WDsfFhRe2-eGJdCGVHjVRzJff8LSznIBuNTTRYFG3V245Ygwwv9iJF4QM2LLE51Cdzulm4KRe-ZimEjUxVJ5zc/s320/Lee+Perry.jpg" width="320" height="259" data-original-width="1600" data-original-height="1293" /></a><br />
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The genius and eccentricity of Lee 'Scratch' Perry go before him in equal measure. One the one hand there is the prolific output of his band, The Upsetters, his production work with Bob Marley and a string of reggae luminaries and his invention of dub in the 1970s. On the other hand, there is his burning down of his own Black Ark studio, a fondness for cosmic pronouncements and an increasingly individual style of dress.<br />
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Incredibly, at the age of 82 he has just released a new album and seems to be permanently on tour in Europe and the States. When he took the stage at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill last Friday, what sprang to mind was Dr Johnson's surprise not at seeing something done well but seeing it done at all. And for the first part of the set, I was not sure it was being done well: despite there being much love for him from the audience, the songs were unrecognisable, Perry's talk between numbers was rambling and I had a feeling that he was making the lyrics up as he went along.<br />
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It was only when he played Max Romeo's Chase the Devil ("I'm gonna put on a iron shirt, and chase Satan out of earth"), a song that Perry co-wrote and produced in 1976, that things began to hit their stride. Followed up with another of his famous collaborations, The Congos' Fisherman, and a brilliant version of Bob Marley and the Wailers' Crazy Baldhead, there was suddenly a sense of Perry's deserved place as roots reggae's crowned head. And he was wearing a crown of sorts: a baseball cap bedecked with mirrors, badges and feathers topped off a shell suit that looked as though it had been rescued from an explosion in a paint factory. Oh, and his trainers and beard were matching crimson.<br />
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Perry also displayed some surprisingly sprightly moves for an octogenarian, although the high stepping and leg kicks might be attributable to the vitamin tablets he took from the suitcase parked in front of the drum riser and necked halfway through the set. Mind you, if I was doing what he does in my eighties I might need more than a few ginseng pills. Bizarrely, he also showed us that he was wearing another pair of trousers under his trousers; what the benefit of this was remained unclear.<br />
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Lee 'Scratch' Perry has a history of working with British artists - The Clash, Adrian Sherwood, Mad Professor - and this year's <i>The Black Album</i> - what might be his 65th studio album as an artist - has been made with Norfolk-based producer, Daniel Boyle. Never one to shirk giving spiritual advice, Perry finished with arguably the standout track from the album, Your Shadow Is Black, exhorting us to "love yourselves and yourself", a sentiment we were happy to reciprocate.<br />
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Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-2527440527636368171.post-52815927747018292512018-10-25T21:00:00.000+01:002019-07-20T07:57:10.741+01:00Geography<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDqpDrYdOG_tMDFKBIk9wKMfIK7vb_G3rCN56CbxBcvlBpQdXyVJXWJfEFmOhyxdGNbN3w-CpwTKhKttMDzPxlTZ_6n4cYgthJS_6CERQn8Tx67wE5VJILKfXNf5NxYw5CJOMBLjaLE8k/s1600/Rolling+Blackouts.jpg" imageanchor="1" ><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgDqpDrYdOG_tMDFKBIk9wKMfIK7vb_G3rCN56CbxBcvlBpQdXyVJXWJfEFmOhyxdGNbN3w-CpwTKhKttMDzPxlTZ_6n4cYgthJS_6CERQn8Tx67wE5VJILKfXNf5NxYw5CJOMBLjaLE8k/s320/Rolling+Blackouts.jpg" width="320" height="243" data-original-width="1024" data-original-height="777" /></a><br />
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Without any deliberation behind it, I have been listening to a lot of Australian music this year: excellent albums from The Stroppies, Courtney Barnett, The Goon Sax and Rolling Blackouts Coastal Fever have all been on heavy rotation round our house. However, I only made the geographical connection between them when I was limbering up this week to go and see the latter band play live in Brighton. If we still had a proper music press I would have already realised as a handy label would have been applied (New South Wave, Ozchester, other suggestions on a postcard, please) and the bands would have been lumped into a high-profile movement.<br />
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That said, there is a refreshing rediscovery of a naïve and positive guitar sound that links all of them together and seeing Rolling Blackouts at Concorde 2, with their four guitarists and three vocalists, made me realise that I have not seen a band as energetic this year: hardworking and superbly-named drummer, Marcel Tussie, and bassist, Joe Russo, drive the rhythm along relentlessly, the duelling guitars of Russo's brother Tom, Fran Keaney and Joe White chime above and, with all three taking vocal turns, the pace is relentless.<br />
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This year's debut album, <i>Hope Downs</i>, has been very well received in this country and it made up the bulk of the set with Talking Straight, Exclusive Grave and Mainland being the picks. But it was two songs from 2016's seven-track <i>Talk Tight</i> EP that were the standouts for me. The infectiousness of Wither With You disguises a lyric of despair - "Trying to make our dreams come true/And I wonder what's the use/When you're pointing at that noose" - but was still an early highlight and the evening closed with Wide Eyes, my favourite for its reverb and treated vocal that put me in mind of The Jesus and Mary Chain. However, it was another band from the 80s that I was reminded of most - albeit a faster version - Brisbane's The Go-Betweens. Maybe there is something in geography after all.Andrew Watsonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00272394087021647267noreply@blogger.com0