After leaving the theatre last night, I nearly walked straight into veteran rocker and stalwart of the Rolling Stones, Ronnie Wood complete with dolly on his arm and some foreign giant trying to hail him a cab. He’s really small in real life and resembles something from the Henson Creature Workshop circa their “Dark Crystal” period. I think he was coming out of the Marquis of Gramby.
He is more nose than man…
Creature From Dark Crystal
Ronnie Wood
Setlist
1 Interference Patterns
2 Mr. Sands
3 Your Time Starts Now
4 Mathematics
5 Lemmings
6 Lifetime
7 Bunsho
8 Over The Hill
9 Scorched Earth
10 Childlike Faith In Childhood’s End
Encore:
11 La Rossa
The last time I’d seen Van der Graaf Generator was back in 2005 when they thundered back to the realm of live performances with their now legendary comeback gig at the Royal Festival Hall. I had tickets for their previous Barbican outing in 2007, but decided not to go because I’d gotten the Missus pregnant and I thought all the noise and excitement of a VDGG concert wouldn’t be conducive to the development of the foetus.
Despite getting a little lost driving into London, we arrived late to miss the first song and caught them blistering through “Mr Sands” from the new album “A Grounding in Numbers”. And quite a bit of material tonight was from this CD and their previous released “Trisector”. But despite this, the one hour and forty-five minute set whizzed past with such speed, such was my enjoyment and involvement with the music.
It takes quite a bit of getting used to not having David Jackson’s saxophones in the mix, but I must admit I didn’t miss him with Hammill covering his lines on guitar and keyboard. This was a very different animal, much leaner, much meaner and definitely louder. The material from “A Grounding in Numbers” felt a lot stronger than the “Trisector” songs, which felt a little meandering and meek in comparison. Of course, you also want some of the old songs and there was a smattering of those to suffice: “Lemmings” which the beginning was almost unrecognisable thanks to Hammill’s lead guitar playing, “Scorched Earth” was dispatched with a raw power you come to expect, but it wasn’t until show closer “Childlike Faith In Childhood’s End” that I felt the power of the music actually suck the air from my lungs and leave me breathless. The encore of “La Rossa” continued to electrify and left me tingling as all the hairs on my neck and body suddenly stood to attention, such was the power of the music.
The band were on good form and one can forgive the “trainwrecks” (Peter Hammill’s words not mine) that happened during the show. The power and brute force of this trio still amazes me and Hammill’s unfaltering voice, which soars and screams and whispers and talks, is worth the ticket price alone. How that man can still do what he does at his age, I find totally awe-inspiring.
I must admit that I had pretty low expectations of the concert, but I feel that was the best place the start because I had a very good evening of music delivered to me. I spent a lot of the evening transfixed by the playing of drummer Guy Evans, who is the heartbeat of the band, while Hugh Banton bolstered the guitar and keyboard playing of Hammill. The only criticism, if there is to be a criticism, is that Peter Hammill is no lead guitarist and his playing was a little weak in places and sometimes you couldn’t even hear him in the mix. But it doesn’t matter because with that voice, Hammill can sing the telephone book and I’d pay to listen.
They are a pretty tight trio when they get going and, despite their collective age, make a lot of younger rock bands look like a bunch of simpering pussies. Viva le VDGG!
The following collection of material was initially compiled in 1997 from recordings made between 1994 and 1997. By this time, I was reaching the end of my time recording with a four-track cassette recorder and was moving over to the digital domain. As I remember it, a lot of the track here were recorded by bouncing down from two tracks to another, as a stereo pair, thus retaining some of audio fidelity of a stereo recording.
The downside to this technique was that once you’d committed yourself to a take there was no going back. It was like recording in concrete, you were stuck with your takes and mistakes. At this juncture, I’d pretty much given up writing “proper” songs and instead was quite taken with recording strange instrumental pieces. I’m not sure where this sprang from, probably because I was working and finding harder to galvanise myself to write lyrics that were pertinent to my situation. I don’t know, my memory is fogged up over this period.
I know that during this time I was experimenting with two different FX pedals. I traded in my Zoom 9000 and used a Korg AX30G for a while, which was interested because it had a pressure sensitive button instead of a traditional rocker pedal and it allowed you to pull off some funky pitch changes and almost synth-like effects. Later, this was traded in for a Digitech RP10, which was a pretty impressive piece of kit for the time. Though my enduring memory of it was having an almost brittleness to some of the guitar tones.
Of course, it is at this point where my first dabblings with guitar synthesiser can be heard. In late 1994, I purchased a second-hand Roland GR-1 (which I kept for almost a decade) with some money I’d inherited. I remember demoing in the GR-1 in the shop and being completely astounded that you could make a guitar sound like a piano or a trumpet or whatever. But it is on this collection of recordings that you can heard my first fumblings with the GR-1 and my first faltering steps into the genre known as ambient.
01 Now Here
I have absolutely no memory of recording this, but it sounds to me that I was experimenting with rudimentary looping. Perhaps the Korg or the Digitech had this function, I don’t know? But there’s something relaxingly hypnotic about all the bouncing guitar, even though the guitar synth line sounds as if it was recorded underwater.
02 Slipaway
Again, very little memory of this. The original masters were lost, so this is the original WAV file revibrated with a bit of EQ and squirted through a mastering plugin, though it still sounds muddy. There’s an idea in there somewhere but I think the lack of editorial judgement and inability to undo mistakes limits this to the “shit” pile.
03 Reverso
Now I do remember recording this one. It was a summer’s evening and I was still living at home and I had my bedroom window open and the sounds of summer were filtering through my headphones when I discovered this great reverse echo delay effect on the Digitech RP10. The main guitar line holds the song together with the bass and guitar synth following. Of course, the guitar was done in one take, no edits and everything else added afterwards. I really like this one because it is unique, even though some of the bass playing is very, very ropey.
04 Hevisqal
This was recorded using the Korg AX10 and a few of the subsequent tracks were done in a similar fashion with a pre-programmed drum pattern triggered and me laying down the lead guitar lines over the top, adding bass and whatever last. The idea was that you just played and played and somehow made it fit. There are some good sounds here but it needs to be recorded on a proper multitrack system, edited and mixed properly – rather than this stupid stereo bouncing system I was using.
05 Acoustisynth
Me trying to pretend that I could fingerpick and some splurgey guitar synth mush in the background.
06 Joe ’96
Now I have memories of recording this using the Korg AX10 and the guitar synth at the same time and jumping around on one leg from pedal to pedal getting these weird squeaking noises – because the lead line and all the squeaks and pops were played live with just bass added later. So you have this weird layered stereo wall of sound – it’s still too long and meandering. Parts of it reminded me of the Joe 90 theme tune, so hence the cribbed title.
07 Nothing to Do
A song about unemployment that shouldn’t even be on this collection…
08 Deelai
Again, this is a track let down by bad editing and me just running out of steam on it. Yes, by this time I had discovered the delay pedal and was intent on making the listener sick of hearing it.
09 Jazza
This is another track where the lead guitar line was triggering off a guitar synth at the same time and mixing three sources into the mix at once, with the bass and guitar synth added later. Could have been better if I’d done this on a digital system – to many fudges and lacklustre playing to be taken serious, but I make a little go a long way.
10 Tinkitar
This is the end section of another track called “Let Your Fingers Do the Walking” but it was castrated and set free to exist in this format and gives an indication of ideas to come – thinks certain sections on “START” and “Tempest”. The lead guitar is just too busy and too flakey.
11 Descender
I quite like this one – again we have three or four multitracked guitars holding down the groove with some bass backing. This is beginning to indicate where my recordings would be going in the future and is really a “missing link”.
12 The Road Home
More ambient nonsense with me noodling around on the Roland GR-1 with the sustain settings set to max on the patches so every note sings for a long time and you can layer notes on top of each other. Not quite soundscaping, but recorded absolutely live in one take…
Today was a day of metaphorical sunshine and showers. Herbie was adopting his persona of Grumpus Maximus (the cod latin for massive grump) and was hard to console. It could be teething, more teeth are shooting through, so Calpol was administered and eventually he calmed down.
The biggest test of the day was getting Verity to her doctors appointment, where she was to have her MMR jab. The issue was the distance to be walked, as I am no car driver and public transport would take us the scenic route, and whether or not to squeeze a rather large three-and-a-half year old into a buggy.
I decided that we would walk and while it started well, it wasn’t long before the complaining began:
“Are we at the Doctor’s yet?”
“Are we lost?”
“I am scared. We are lost”
“Are we at the Doctor’s yet?”
Repeat as required…
But it was a lovely sunny spring afternoon and we made good progress up Alderton Hill and down Trap’s Hill to the surgery. Being a clever so-and-so and trying to negotiate the traffic, I decided we cross earlier and walk along the short grass verge that faced the medical centre. As we got closer to the entrance, I suddenly noticed the ground underfoot becoming very waterlogged and before I could step backwards and navigate an alternate route, I discovered my right boot sinking into a boggy puddle that completely enveloped my boot and a good inch of my jeans.
I quickly drew up my boot and skipped over the water trough that blocked our way. Amazingly, Verity’s shoes didn’t get a single speck of mud on them and I quickly searched for some long grass with which to soak up the mud from my boots. Despite my efforts, I trudged into the surgery and left a single line of muddy footprints in and out of the establishment, which, to the casual observer, would have looked as if a one-legged swamp thing had hopped in and then out of the surgery, leaving behind in his wake a splattering of mud and debris.
Thankfully, the injections were shrugged off with a few tears, rewarded with a sweet and some stickers and while we sat in the waiting room to see if any ill-effects should appear, a quick game of “Sonic the Hedgehog” on my iPod Touch took her mind off the two injections, one in each arm.
We then walked into town, went into WH Smiths and selected a Peppa Pig magazine and spent some time on a bench reading the stories and saving our legs for the walk home. Of course, little madam had to give up at the final furlong and I carried her part of the way up the hill, but we made it home intact.
Despite the soggy foot and the occasional feeling of being an utter failure in this world, I had my reward this afternoon. I was very proud of my daughter and how she behaved, how she didn’t make a fuss with the injections and how she was rapt in my storytelling on the bench with tales of Peppa Pig at the Fair, the hustle and bustle of the world moving around us.
It’s moments like this that make me realise I really am the luckiest man in the world… I don’t deserve any of this.
Why have one stupid thing happen to you in a day when you could have three? I love stupid. I embrace stupid. I fondle the stupidness in me and realise that I am a fully paid up member of the Idiot Nation. However, I am an idiot in disguise. I am undercover. I am working on the inside see.
The day started with a raft of post flopping through the letter box. Contained within were two items of stupid to deal with. The first was the realisation that British Telecom (or BT as they call themselves in chummy marketing speak) doesn’t actually change your postal address when you move house for I received a bill from my old property via Royal Mail’s mail forwarding service.
No, they don’t change your address for you – you have to go online to your account and do it yourself manually. How stupid is that? It’s taken me nearly two months to find this out, but I have updated my details and hopefully no more bills will go astray. Mind you, who actually wants to receive bills? I must be daft or sumfink…
The second item of stupid came via the local council and its council tax bill. They’d already demonstrated how stupid they were by messing up my original council tax bill and having to send a replacement. So imagine the lack of suprise when I open the bill and discover that it contains a reminder. No, Mr Lock you haven’t paid the outstanding amount from your previous bill.
Au contraire, I fire off a retaliatory email to them stating that they were paid from my debit card via their payment website at the beginning of the month. I don’t think I’ve heard the last of that one.
The third item of stupid consumed the rest of the day. I had ordered some monitor speakers for my digital mixer, having giving my old set away before we moved. The company I used had been good in the past and I expected them to arrive before lunchtime. When they didn’t turn up I checked my email, then my spam folder and discovered the tracking details.
Somehow the speakers had been delivered to the completely wrong address! I am not sure how it happened but I suspect that someone at the company had entered in the wrong postcode and automatically send the item astray. So I go around and knock to see if I can retreive them. No-one is home.
I return and fire off an email to the company involved and they tell me that I should get them back, but assure me that the mistake was no way mine. Heck, I knew that. The address was COMPLETELY different to my own so it wasn’t as if I’d had a brain fart and typed it all in wrong.
So a couple more visits and still no answer. No answer from the neighbours either, but I check the tracking information at the courier website and it tells me that it was delivered to number 18. So I go back again, but there’s no answer despite lights being on and evidence of human habitation. Thankfully, I had the presence of mind to have a note written out with my sad story inside and my contact number, which I posted through the letter box.
After dinner, I received a message saying that they did have my speakers and I could go and collect them. Huzzah! Problem solved. When I brought them home and opened up my invoice I was amused (is amused the right emotion, I’m not sure) to discover that the company had got my CORRECT home delivery address on the invoice.
It truly was a “Day of the Stupid”…
The new album from Arthur Jeffes, Penguin Café
I’ve written many words about my fondness for the original Penguin Café Orchestra and its proprietor, Simon Jeffes, and you might have already read my review of the recent concert by the revived, rebooted, Penguin Café helmed by son-of-Jeffes, Arthur. Well now there’s an album of new material written by Arthur Jeffes featuring this new configuration of musicians.
It’s a hard job to fill anyone’s footsteps, probably even harder to fill your father’s footsteps but “A Matter of Life..” is brave attempt at resurrecting his musical heritage. Before you even listen to the CD you have to commend his strength of character for even attempting such a feat. I mean, what if the record is a stinker? What if it is just a piss-poor shadow of the original Penguin Café music?
Thankfully, the answer to those questions is a resounding “No!”. There are some classic moments on the record where you forget that this is Jeffes Jr work and you kid yourself that the PCO are back in town, the opening track “That, Not That” and “Landau” are examples of the music just spiriting you away to the good old days and a are worth the price of admission alone.
And while it is a brave record, you can sense that there is a lot of nostalgia here, the tunes are looking back and not looking forward. A lot of the musical cues and ticks and styles are borrowed wholesale from Jeffes Snr (the “Fox and the Leopard”, for example). Is this a bad thing? Yes, if you are looking for a work of startling genius. No, if you accept the record and the project for what it is: remembering and reviving.
I must admit I’ve never experienced music or a record like this before. It feels right as a continuation, but the snickering cynic at the back of my mind asks: “Is this music genuine – does it come from a genuine place?” I don’t want to even try and answer that because I have already accepted the record and I can’t imagine my own children being remotely interested in the music I make, let alone setting out on a path to recreate it.
The bottom line is that if you are a Penguin Café Orchestra fan and you want the closest thing to bringing the band back from the dead and experiencing a new PCO album, then this is it. My only criticism is some of the later tracks feel a little underdeveloped and meandering, but the original band were guilty of this trait sometimes too.
It truly is a remarkable piece of work and my admiration for Arthur Jeffes continues. I look forward to seeing the band again in May.
This is a little track I recorded on the 14 July 2009 – I must have done this back in The Shed – and I thought I’d test out the new media player in WordPress with it today.
The interesting thing about this track is that it is a live performance of myself on the bass guitar playing through the Boss RC-50 looper. I am also using the Boss SL-20 slicer pedal to add that weird rhythmic slant to proceedings and then I am soloing over the top.
The overall vibe of the track gave it a title this afternoon and that’s it really. A little unformed sketch that was never used…
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