Hey, thanks so much for all your offers of help, I am awed by your generosity. I can assure you that I don’t deserve it but will take full advantage anyway because, as Phil Oakey sang in lines immutable; ‘I’m only Human/of flesh and blood I’m made’. Ok, so that’s that sorted, I haven’t actually replied to anyone yet, I’m still reeling. Most of you are woefully overqualified, all I wanted was for someone to do a spot of hoovering and look after Sonny while I nip down the bookies.
Worked in the studio today on a Black Serpent Choir track called ‘New Brighton Baths 1983′ which will mean nothing to some and everything to a very few. Hopefully the music should bring all those disparate parts together, if not it would make a great theme tune for a cerebral Sunday night arts show (BBC4 commissioners take NOTE!). Later Mary, Sonny and I drove round to see a very old friend of mine, Mark Waring, who used to sing in the band that gave The Boo Radleys their very first break. They were called The Dandelion Adventure and they were awesome. I’ll stick a track up sometime if I can find the time to rip one off vinyl. Let’s face it, it would have to be the all conquering ‘Speed Trials’ although ‘Infant Child Gutter Vulgar’ would be close.
photo by Gill Caven
The year was 1989, so very long ago. We were playing fifth on the bill at a Planet X all dayer, headlined by The Senseless Things. We were awful, an utter shambles, all of which we blamed, naturally, on our drummer. This is the cowards that we were, listen… We hired a manager on the spot and told him to go sack the drummer. Unbefuckinglievable.
Anyway, the Dandelion Adventure, who had obviously got us confused with one of the other bands, thought that we were ace and took us on tour with them. Nine of us in the back of a transit, starving to death and listening to ‘Baby You’re Just You’ by the Pastels over and over again. We played our first London show at a pub in Stockton (Queens Head? Arms? Foof?) and Harlow Square and, I can’t remember anywhere else. Later on Mark managed Cornershop and worked at Domino, it was great to see him. Tonight I received a mail from another member, Ajay, who tour manages now (Dinosaur Jr, MBV etc). After twenty years I am so grateful to them. They rule.
It’s 11pm, I have to go to bed. So strange going to bed so early. Much to do tomorrow, records out soon, exciting times ahead.
Sleep tight. Friday Morning - I located an MP3 through my friend Anthony (DJ Scissorkicks, Collapsed Lung) on Twitter who was the teenage promoter ay Harlow Square the night we turned up unannounced with the Dandelion Adventure. He later produced the first bravecaptain recordings ‘Captain America, Let’s Stick Together and ‘Bravecaptain’s Blues’. All these wonderful links that intertwine around the rotted old stump that is me.
Five years ago I received a call asking me to play at the second Greenman festival. The first had completely passed me by but since nobody was offering me gigs then I readily agreed. The festival was ace. A handful of gentle, bearded folk with lots of kids running around and acts like Alisdair Roberts, Four Tet and The Earlies playing amidst the soft rain, it was small enough to navigate (nobody has ever been lost at a Greenman festival) but just big enough that you could get out of your cake without upsetting anybody. I’ve been every year since and even though it has become much bigger (the first one, in 2003, was attended by 350 people. In 2008 there must have been ten times that number). The mixture of folk, electronica and random esoterica is far more interesting than the usual festival lineups of identikit indie bands and commercial heavyweights.
Jo and Danny, the organisers, had been members of the indie scene in the late eighties before it was seduced by money, cocaine and fame and have used their love of music and their experience in putting on bands (they used to run the Buzz Club in Aldershot) to create an experience completely lacking in cynicism, violence, corporate interference and the usual multi tier backstage pass shenanigans that are the hallmark of most major festivals. They are lovely people too, enthusiastic, generous and, for the time being, completely committed to ensuring the festival remains purely about the artist and their audience.
Over the past five years I’ve seen incredible performances from Bonnie Prince Billy, The Earlies, Dead Meadow, Bert Jansch, Pentangle, Richard James and this year didn’t disappoint. The Cave Singers were the act that I was most looking forward to seeing and they were great. Knee slapping, beard totin’ tunes sung by a guy who sounds like a girl with a guys voice.
The Fuck Buttons were disappointing. I’ve been playing one fuzzy note from a laptop for decades and it took two of them ages to do very little. Kling Klang would have been so much better.
Oh yeah. Music that moves.
I loved the first North Sea Radio Orchestra album and they were better this year than last. Then they were lost in the big tent but somehow managed to overcome that this year. Maybe it’s just that I was standing a little closer to the stage. Spiritualised were ok but relied heavily on the ballads and their performance was a lost opportunity for a crowd who wanted to finish off the night with a display of Astaire footed abandon. Threatmantics, playing early on Friday, were the best I’ve seen them. Lurching between, Joy Division, My Bloody Valentine, The Specials and a host of others using a guitar, drumkit and viola, they left me breathless.
I was standing in the courtyard of the Green Man cafe waiting for Mary to finish watching The Peth (who, it must be said, were utter shite and need to sort out their priorities. People don’t but tickets to see a singer who’s fucked his voice up so completely that he could only muster a bellow akin to a stricken yak. It’s alike a guitarist chopping his arm off just before he’s due on) with a beer in my hand when two people walked on the small stage and started playing. Wildbirds and Peacedrums (and what an ace name that is) are a couple of Swedes who make a free soul racket that had me transfixed. At times it was difficult to believe that there were only two of them up there.
I checked out the dance tent on the Sunday night and, as usual, it was Andy Votel playing undanceable psych music to a handful of his mates. For somebody with a supposedly wide ranging taste in musical styles, his sets always sound to me like two bands at the most. I called it a festival and slid back down the muddy hill and to bed.
