It’s nice to be recognised…
…especially by the mighty Normblog. Thanks Norm!
Thirty Year Man
Clive James was 70 this week. When he was a mere stripling in his thirties, I discovered the work he had done with Pete Atkin on a series of albums just coming to a premature end in the face of indifference from the great British public and the big record companies. I’ve been a fan ever since, so when, not long after getting to grips with the internet, last century, I discovered Midnight Voices, an online community of Atkin / James fans, I joined up, and have watched with pleasure as Pete has responded to our interest by producing new versions of his older material, versions of previously unheard songs, and an album of all new material. This is one of the best things about the web- none of this would have been possible without it, although Steve Birkill, the onlie begetter of Midnight Voices deserves a huge vote of thanks for his tenacity in getting the whole thing moving, and keeping it going.
The website that Steve maintains contains more than you will ever need to know about Atkin and James, and I commend it to you. For the uninitiated, though, here’s why I think this work is important. The songs (lyrics by James, music by Atkin) struck me then as a callow youth, and strike me even more so now as a grizzled pantaloon, as being quite extraordinary in their lyrical dexterity and musical adventurousness. To listen to them alongside some of the other products of the early seventies is to hear consummate skill and intelligence up against the derivative and inept inanities of the semi-literate. The lyrics of James, intense, allusive, topical, poetic, are set by Atkin using the full range of musical styles available in popular song. So, rather than a typical guitar bass drums set up, those early Atkin albums featured the cream of British sessionmen, often with a jazz background, such as Henry Mackenzie, Chris Spedding,Kenny Clare, Herbie Flowers, Alan Wakeman and many others.
In a series of albums in the early seventies, they produced a long list of brilliant songs, often tackling unlikely topics with intelligence and humour. In my view, they have produced the best songs about the music business; the best song about alcoholism; the funniest song about drug abuse; the only song about the fears of a Mafia boss; the best songs about the death of sixties idealism and the Vietnam war…I could go on, but you get the picture.
It was a real pleasure and privilege, then, to attend this year’s Midnight Voices event, and to hear those songs again, often with new arrangements. My review is here.
If you are interested in intelligent lyrics, sung sensitively and with a brilliant musical setting, look no further. All the old albums are reissued in handsome new editions, and the later material is still available. You won’t be disappointed.
Last Chance to See…
Anxious as ever to be present at the cutting edge of vibrantly youthful popular culture, I hied me to the Bridgewater Hall on Friday, accompanied by ‘er indoors and the man also known as the Silver Fox to witness a concert by two up and coming youngsters playing modern music. The elder of the two bandleaders, the prematurely grey Acker Bilk, was supporting the raven-haired whippersnapper Kenny Ball.
Blimey! Acker is 80, and Kenny a year younger. Between them, they’ve been trad-jazzing for over a century. That’s remarkable enough, though not as remarkable as Kenny’s hair. What is truly remarkable is that they can still put on an excellent show for a pretty good crowd of adoring fans.
Acker came on to stage painfully slowly – he’s obviously not too mobile – but he performed well, helped out considerably by his excellent trumpet player, Enrico Tomasso, who dominated proceedings, as the six-piece band ran through a series of standards. Acker introduced most of them with a joke, and a running gag (at least I think it was) where he’d say, “The next number is… (turning to the pianist) what the hell’s the next one called?” He had to do Stranger on the Shore, of course, and did, donning his bowler for the occasion,though his clarinet part was really reduced to some atmospheric noodlings. It was pleasant, but that was all.
Kenny Ball’s group, with an identical lineup – drums, bass, piano, and a front row of trumpet (obviously)trombone and clarinet, produced a much beefier sound, aided considerably by excellent playing from the rhythm section, and the clarinet playing of Andy Cooper that reminded you rather poignantly of how much power Acker had lost. Kenny Ball can still blast it out, and certainly contributed mightily to the overall impact. The Jazzmen had fun, and included, as they had to, “I Wanna Be Like You” played as a request for a young lad (with his grandparents presumably) in the audience. I think they might have played it anyway…Andy Cooper’s been singing that for 40 years now, but still obviously enjoyed it, and rocked the house, insofar as the Bridgewater is rockable. There were some surprises, notably an excursion into Jacques Loussier or David Rees-Williams territory, led by excellent pianist Hugh Ledigo and a fantastic (but, by definition, too long) drum solo by Nick Millward.
It was great fun, and I’m glad I saw these legends. Couldn’t get Midnight in Moscow out of my head all day Saturday.
Moderation in all things
One of the unexpected benefits of comment moderation has been that I’ve picked up on some comments on old posts that I wouldn’t have otherwise seen – including some spam from China.
So, it seems that my titanic struggle with Writers Bureau wasn’t quite the success I had thought judging by the new comment. I’ll see if I can get a copy of their brochure – but does this count as advertising? And thanks to Thomas for his comment on the ways people try to get more money out of us.
Dee Time
It’s a never-failing indication of creeping old age when icons of your youth die. I’m old enough to have been enthralled by Simon Dee’s tea-time show on TV. To an adolescent in grimy Moston, he seemed effortlessly cool, roaring off into the sunset in his E-type as the credits rolled at the end of the show. He was one of the first people who were famous for being famous- he had no discernible talent other than handsome features and a pleasantly unforced television manner. He seemed at the time to epitomise the new youth culture, as it took over the bastion of the establishment, the BBC. What happened after his flop at LWT is quite shocking. There were a couple of comeback attempts, but essentially, this man spent half his life on the scrapheap.
Fair enough
So I’m in the local Co-op buying a bottle of wine. Spotty youth at the checkout is trying to scan it but it won’t scan. He asks his camp co-worker why it won’t. “Well, it’s obvious”, he says. “This is an evil bottle of wine – it’s not Fairtrade, so it’s probably produced by enslaved North Korean children!”
“Er… it’s Italian,” I say.
“Yes, probably produced by Mussolini’s descendants” he says, and flounces theatrically to serve someone else.
I love this. It proves that, as John Shuttleworth wisely opined, “Shopkeepers in the north are nice.”
Apture
Just a quick post to say that I’ve enabled a new widget called Apture, which should produce lots of multi-media links at the click of a mouse, as MC Desmo says.
Trolls
I suppose blogging is a kind of vanity publishing. There’s no quality control – I can write what I like. But the main difference between Topsyturvydom and some execrable self-published collection of poems is that I can, to some extent, control the reaction to it. After all, an author publishing in the usual way is open to criticism and has to take it. On the interweb, however, my space (someone should use that as the name for a web site) is my castle, and I can repel boarders if I wish.
In four years of blogging, I’ve never attracted the kind of malicious commenter designated a troll by the internet geeks. Until now, that is. Thanks to a friend who understands how these things work, I have been able to use my sitemeter to identify the troll’s IP address- not that I really needed to, as I know who the person is, but you never know when you might need proof. Having a colleague who is an expert in forensic linguistics is useful too.
The upshot is that comment moderation is now in place. It won’t trouble any genuine commenter, beyond having to wait a matter of some hours perhaps before their comment appears. But I really don’t see why I should give cyber house-room to people who simply want to insult me. So I won’t.
Volleying and thundering
You would think I might get these all right. No, I got 6 / 7. I even got the question on To Kill a Bleeding Mockingbird right. What I got wrong is the question on The Charge of the Light Brigade, where I was invited to declare why Tennyson had used certain verbs. All the answers were reasonable, but only one is right, apparently. My respect for GCSE examiners has increased exponentially, as it is clear they can communicate with long dead poets laureate to ask footling questions about their poems.
“Alf, are you there? Can you tell us why you chose the verbs “volleyed” and “thundered” in that long poem of yours?”
“Certainly: it’s to reinforce the danger faced by the soldiers.”
“Righto. Sure it’s not to reinforce the noise of battle, what with those verbs being vaguely onamatopoeic and all?”
“Nope. Reinforce the danger.”
“OK. Thanks Alf. Is Charlotte there by the way? Got a couple of questions for her.”
Utt(er)ly barmy
Authors routinely complain about boorish punters at book signings, but I don’t think any of them tried the Uttley solution. The formidable children’s author apparently didn’t like the prospect of dealing with real children:
Dimly, she perceived an overwhelming mob running at her and with British pluck she unhesitatingly grabbed her duck-handled umbrella and waded into the attack, felling infants right and left. The kiddies paused, briefly regrouped, then broke up and ran off, screaming in terror. Uttley strode among them, lashing out freely.
I’m warming to her and her rabbits….