Broadcasting

I was looking forward to a radio show this evening. John Humphrys has conducted an interview with Andy Kershaw for the ‘On The Ropes’ programme, due to be broadcast this morning and repeated tonight. Unfortunately the show was ‘pulled’ at the eleventh hour due to, I believe, the privacy of Kershaw’s former partner and his children being affected. Simply, I was keen to hear Kershaw’s voice again. His travails of recent years encompassing domestic disorder, prison, problems with alcohol and the subsequent ‘radio silence’ are reasonably well-documented. Kershaw is hoping to return to the airwaves but has been offered nothing yet by the BBC. I trust and hope that Kershaw’s recent controversies are not behind any decisions to delay any return to the corporation’s airwaves. When the likes of Brand, Ross and Moyles are routinely forgiven for foibles, it seems unjust and disappointing to think that a fellow with ten times the broadcasting talent of those mentioned, with a glorious passion for many forms of music and the erudition to convey this to an enthusiastic following, is denied an audience because of a desperately sad private life. The airwaves need as many Andy Kershaws as possible; I look forward to the engaging Lancastrian making as full a recovery as possible and, one day, gracing the nation’s wirelesses once more.

Water

I spent an hour or so shopping in Asda (formally Associated Dairies) this morning, amid unexpected scenes of sports-related bewilderment. Remarkably, my home city of Gloucester's GL1 Leisure Centre is hosting the European synchronised swimming championships this week and, I’m guessing, today was the opening ceremony*. Naturally, when young athletes and coaches complete the formal pomp and processes that commence a major tournament, all are keen to explore the exotic surroundings of a new nation and where better (where else?) for the top European artists-of-the-pool to start off their tour of duty in Gloucester than the fabled aisles of Asda? First to catch my eye was a gaggle of Ukrainian womenfolk, bedecked proudly in man-made fibres, gaping wide-eyed at the wonders of the west while static crackled malevolently from their vivid tracksuit tops. A Spanish coach sauntered around clutching a packet of Hobnobs while a German counterpart stood transfixed by the luxuries available in the tissue aisle. As I departed the establishment, the Israeli squad strutted in, focus and professionalism etched on furrowed brows followed almost immediately by several Poles, more relaxed and exuding good humour. What heady and remarkable scenes on the Bruton Way! If you squinted it was almost like being in the Olympic Village in Beijing. But only for a fleeting moment.

*A quick peek informs me that today was the closing ceremony. The athletes were obviously bidding Asda a fond farewell and stocking up on sweetmeats and dainties for the long journey back to mainland Europe or, ahem, Israel.

Ken Bruce

The Coles attended a concert party on Friday evening; Duke Special, who we last saw back in the winter of 2005, was headlining an ‘Acoustica Special’ at Gloucester's famous Guildhall. Duke remains a fine talent although subtle changes in the fellow’s material, stage presence and in the overall presentation and arrangement of his songs have conspired, in our opinion, to water down the whole package. Back in 2005, this artist impressed mightily. There was a hint of the underground about his act then, the songs were edgy and unusual while a shy, almost diffident, demeanour kept the audience enthralled. On Friday (and I ‘blame’ the securing of a record contract with the ensuing influx of agents and managers and industry nous) the songs were pleasing, interesting but a touch safe, more eye contact and repartee with the crowd suggested a more relaxed but less remarkable personality while the well-rehearsed combo backing Special added plenty of musical acumen but not one ounce of the spontaneity or eccentricity that so astounded last time. I’m happy for Duke Special that his career has developed and that, by all accounts, his songs are all over Radio Two like a rash. I guess success can be measured in different ways but part of me regrets that a once mesmeric and quirky performer has embraced the mainstream so wholeheartedly and lost many of the facets that constituted a captivating and idiosyncratic niche.

To rouse the spirit of the earth and move the rolling sky

I’m aware I haven’t recommended too many 2009 long players but am happy to salute The Decemberists’ The Hazards of Love, a sublime and really rather clever recording that I’ve been spinning relentlessly in recent days. I note that the current Word Magazine is offering this opus as an incentive to sign up for a subscription, accompanied by an unexpected suggestion from editor Mark Ellen that this might be the greatest album of all time. I can see the fellow’s point. It’s an ambitious beggar with seventeen tracks segueing into each other, producing a stunning suite of songs linked thematically. A wiser man than me might dub this a ‘concept album’ and, indeed, a tale is told throughout of two lovers with nods to death, brutality, enchantment and villainy tossed in for good measure. I hadn’t heard much of this band’s work before but I must investigate the back catalogue. Lead vocalist and musical mastermind Colin Meloy possesses a haunting voice which complements the effective folk-rock instrumental ambience splendidly. There are merry riffs and tantalising solos for those who like that kind of thing while the exquisitely chosen female singers add a great deal of delicacy and lushness to proceedings. The Hazards of Love proved a challenging listen to start with but after numerous plays it has become an old friend. This is a rewarding listen, a multi-layered delight brimming with beautiful tunes and ear-catching interludes. I advise all lovers of soaring sounds to contemplate seeking out this recording and spinning it on their radiograms and hi-fis forthwith.

Our gain is your loss, thats the price you pay

The Guide in Saturday’s Guardian consistently provides plenty of advice for hepcats and hipsters, offering sagacity galore pertaining to, inter alia, upcoming music tours, comedy, feature films, events and televisual joy. There’s always a page devoted to the latest appealing internet sites and ‘twas here, today, that I got the idea to open my own online record store. Peoplesmusicstore.com is an offshoot of Warp Records. It allows punters to make their own little online boutique, flog some sounds and, I believe, keep 10% of the proceeds. I’ve created my own cosy store and named it after this humble weblog. There are about fifty albums there, all owned by myself already in some format or other and recommended wholeheartedly. As this land's worst possible businessman, I don’t really expect to actually sell anything to anyone but it was a happy half hour creating the page. However, if by any huge oversight, you don’t already own anything by Sufjan Stevens (the world’s most remarkable recording artist), you can quickly put this right. The same goes for Boards of Canada, The Go-Betweens, Burial or Pavement, all artists I have sighed wistfully about over the past years or decades.

Untitled

There’s still plenty of work to do in the rear garden but at least the paved area is complete. Here are three pictures showing the progress made over the past few days. Please note the presence of our chickens, now spending their last week chez Cole before heading off to a new life at a colleague’s place. We’re keeping our favourite bird, a little bantam we call Duck, and will soon (maybe tomorrow) buy a friend to keep it company. The chickens have been great fun and have produced literally hundreds of eggs for the table; it’s time for a change though.

Troxy Music

I enjoyed a brief chat with London-based D earlier. The charming product of Newent School has secured me a ticket to attend a concert featuring American alt-rockers Wilco. The Illinoisan collective is playing the capital’s Troxy venue a day or two after headlining the Green Man Festival at the fag end of August. I have started my revision for this recital this evening. Already familiar with the group’s marvellous Yankee Hotel Foxtrot long player, I have downloaded that album’s follow-up, A Ghost is Born which is surging joyously through my beloved Sennheiser headphones as I pen these very words. The Troxy seems a fabulous place to attend live performances. It’s a 1930s art deco listed building which saw many years’ service as a cinema; it looks rather beautiful, both inside and out.

panem et circenses

Gloucester’s renowned rugby union club, known affectionately as ‘Gloucester’, will be playing at Twickenham this weekend in the final of the Anglo-Welsh Cup, known sans affection as the EDF Trophy. A combination of tardiness, my brief absence from this sceptred isle, economics and, I admit, a vague lack of interest means I shall not be attending the match in person. I’ll view events via a telecast more, I fear, in hope than expectation of a win for the local heroes. Fitness doubts surround bullish centre Michael ‘Mike’ Tindall, the young prince of rugby, James Simpson-Daniel and that elegant enigma o’ the back three, Iain Balshaw and I worry that, wi’out this international trio of tyros, the fabled cherry ‘n’ whites’ll struggle against a classy Cardiff outfit.

Although I’ve recently reported some exciting matches (tellingly, doughty fight-backs and reasonably unexpected victories at home) this has not been the finest of seasons for my club. Any success, it seems, has arrived thanks to the energy and enterprise of individual players (Delve, Azam, Morgan) and not because of any surging team effort and cohesive or coherent tactical game plan. Seemingly, I approach the ends of seasons either giddy with expectation for the oncoming late summertide and the promise of pre-season friendly fixtures or, and this is emphatically the case this time round, thankful that the ruddy circus is leaving town for a while and I can think about other stuff for a month or four. It appears that the close season is to be dominated by the faintly familiar swish of the revolving doors at Kingsholm Stadium. Comings and goings are promised. The cynic in me detects a pattern, a cyclical, oft-repeated culling of dead wood and resultant heralded arrival of new faces that will finally, we are promised, complete the jigsaw puzzle and bring success. That swish has been heard before here, a joyless noise that followers of more successful clubs, Leicester Tigers and London Wasps for example, would not recognise.

As every season goes by, a little more of my once electric enthusiasm for the club drips away; I confess that after witnessing countless dull bouts of aerial ping-pong permeating too many unremarkable performances in too many meaningless competitions and having contemplated the soul of the club ebbing away with every witless hee-haw from the stands and every stunningly vacuous uttering from our ghastly new Severn Sound announcer, my fervour is waning rapidly. The club should not take my support for granted despite thirty years of loyal service in the Popular Side. Roll on summer.

Way Out

Currently, the favourite long playing record in this house is Exit by the esoteric Japanese musical magician Shugo Tokumaru. This is a short recording that combines quirky and multi-layered instrumentals with more traditional – yet, at the same time, whimsical and textured – popular songs. The numbers are sung in the artist’s native tongue but the delectable melodies, twisting and innovative, are emphatically universal. The tenderly proffered lyrical content remains, of course, incomprehensible but the charm and beauty, both implied and palpable, renders each moment a tangible treasure. This is a sumptuous record that is recommended highly.

I purchased Exit in Other Music, a fabulous record store just off the lower end of Broadway in, I guess, what is New York’s East Village. It’s my kind of place. There are racks and racks of fascinating product and kindly, knowledgeable yet unpretentious staff who offer sage advice and friendly chitterchat. Each salesperson seems to have chosen a personal and up-to-date top ten list of favoured CDs which is displayed above the counter and this non-corporate and individual touch appeals greatly. I also purchased Harmonic 313’s splendidly titled When Machines Exceed Human Intelligence and Martial Canterel’s Refuge Underneath at Other Music. The former is a recent release on Warp, a bewitching electronic and funky belter heavily influenced by the Detroit techno sound. The latter is a terse, slightly Teutonic, dark slice or twenty of minimal and contemplative melancholia overseen by Brooklyn’s Sean McBride. Both long players are compelling and challenging.

The Cement Garden

Rarely, very rarely, a posting arrives here, featuring hints of hard labour being carried out by my humble and wan self. The Coles have a project on the go at the moment. Last year we purchased, for an undisclosed amount of sovereigns and guineas, the bottom half of our neighbours’ rear garden. Last May, after a bout of drilling and breaking of hardcore, a summerhouse was erected and this week we’re laying a paved section in front of it and putting down a winding path that’ll run the full length of our L-shaped area of horticulture. We’re using reclaimed bricks and pammet (a new word for me) tiles for the 'patio' to make it look all red ‘n’ old. I’ll publish a photograph of the finished article later this week but meanwhile, for thrill-seekers everywhere, here’s a pair of carefully posed action shots indicating ‘work in progress’.

Poetry, that's a part of me, retardedly bop; I drop the ancient manifested hip-hop, straight off the block

I’ve spent a few hectic days in New York with my male heir, y’know wha’ I’m sayin’, and despite the otherworldly sensations that arrive with tricky time zones and travel tedium I am happy to sign in and salute comrades. We stayed at the Roger Smith Hotel, a reassuringly old-fashioned establishment in the heart of Manhattan’s East Side and a fabulous base from which to stride purposefully out, clad in Zoot Suits, each morning. Amid varied weather (blistering sun to torrential rain to, absurdly, snow) much was packed in. I enjoyed the hipster-run independent record stores in the south of the borough and picked up some wonderful CDs that I’m sure I’ll mention here soon. There were plenty of new experiences to appreciate, from bloating oneself on diner breakfasts, craning one’s neck at too many skyscrapers to count, haring down the avenues in yellow cabs to strolling contentedly through Central Park and drifting in and out of wonderfully eclectic thrift stores and flea markets. I’d like to return.

Some photographs are proffered. The top features the male heir and ‘oodied hepcat in front of the Flatiron Building. The author stands before the Empire State Building in the middle digital daguerreotype image. Eyes should then be lowered to the bottom image where one can marvel at the view from our hotel room’s window.

And you may find yourself...

I’ve been in poor health this week and unable to summon the energy or inclination to post on here. I apologise.

Last weekend’s trip to Birmingham’s Symphony Hall requires a mention. David Byrne produced a remarkable set of funky, riddimic splendour that had a large crowd merrily bopping and saluting the former Talking Head with fervour and joy. The main ‘set texts’ were, I suppose, Fear of Music and the remarkable Remain in Light although a few tracks from Byrne’s recent collaboration with Brian Eno were showcased as well. The fellow certainly knows how to put on a splendid show. A hip (some would say ‘uber-hip’) dance collective complemented the scorching aural treats with plenty of abstract movements and energetic tomfoolery. As the dashing S mentioned afterwards, with such a marvellous back catalogue you can’t really go wrong. There were too many highlights to mention but I loved all the Remain in Light stuff, dug a vigorous I Zimbra and sighed contentedly at a bewitching Heaven. The two hours rocketed by. I confess that often I’m keen for concerts to err on the side of caution and not go on too long but I acclaimed the length of this recital and was thrilled that three encores were proffered to a delirious audience. A travelled to Bristol to see Byrne last week and wrote of the event with far more eloquence than I can muster. Visit the wistful fellow here; he has multimedia treats for you.