Song #11 De La Soul

I've been remiss... I haven't written, haven't called...

It's been something of a mixed bag this month. I've seen several doctors, nurses, consultants, therapists and their machines. I've been to clinics and hospitals and I've been to Glastonbury 2014, which sent me back to hospital. So, pain and mud notwithstanding. I've managed a few good things.

This are my excuses for not writing I suppose. And even this is a filler for the time being. I'm very tired, lying in bed trying to work out how to pay the rent, and various other immediate and large bills. Ah well, fuck 'em. "Freedom's just another word for nothing left to lose".

So here's a song I heard at the festival

De La Soul - Eye Know

Song #10 Jah Wobble

I am not well. I'm actually in pain most of the time and that's not something that's going away. I take pills, they sometimes work, they change the pills, they juggle all the usual green and yellows for blues and greys...

Anyway. I feel like writing most of the time, a lot of the time I'm simply not capable of actually turning on a computer and tapping out the words. It makes me angry which makes me ill, which gets me down. We all know the glorious spirals that make up this short and brutish existence. Music, books and art are all things that can help make the pain palatable - a spoonful of sugar as it were. (A spoonful of oxycontin would sometimes be preferable).

Music and memories are so deeply intertwined it's sometimes difficult to work out the reality. For instance - I can remember lying in someone's car, or maybe on the sofa, when I first heard Dexy's singing "Come on Eileen" on the radio. It was released in 1982, a world cup year, and through the mist of beer, wine and other things, I thought it was the Ireland world cup song - "Come on Ireland". It didn't really make any difference at that moment that Ireland hadn't actually qualified. That's what I remember. I don't know if any of it is true...

My memory might be shot but some memories are frighteningly real. I loved a girl called Sal. In 1981, partly to get away from the royal marriage shenanigans, four of us went to France for a fortnight. When I got back to London I was obsessed with this song, I still love it. PiL were a beacon for me, and Wobble's bass lines were hypnotic. This is "How Much Are They?". It's beautiful.

(If you don't own anything by JW then check out the three CD "I Could Have Been A Contender". It's a decent overview. And if you've got some spare cash - go and buy the man's back catalogue, and go and see him live. Quality).


How much are they?

Song #9 Prefab Sprout

I spend some time sparked out on new meds and the next thing you know is that the computer hasn't been on for days... Various contraptions that play music have been on however, helping me through the oblivion and pain.

Everyone falls in love at some time or another, unless they're a functioning psychopath or similar, and love makes you do strange things. I've fallen in love, plummeted into love, on 3 occasions, and there have always been storms and misery as well as the joyous bits and pieces. This song reminds me of the second great amour, this red-headed wonder I met while pretending to study for a degree. We danced around one another, we spent time behind closed curtains, we argued and drank a lot, she had a boyfriend who lived 150 miles away. I spent some of the most wonderful hours, nights, weeks with her.

And then it was over. She went away on a drizzly August afternoon. And this song has her in it

When Love Breaks Down

Song #8 Creedence Clearwater Revival

I've had a lot of fun in the USA, travelled widely, drunk deeply, listened to a lot of music. I listened to some great jazz in New York and New Orleans, punk in NY and Los Angeles, cow-punk in Texas, and some cajun/zydeco hybrid in Baton Rouge that made even me want to dance. And I haven't really scratched the surface.

You do stupid things when you're young, when you still believe you're immortal, when death is something that happens to other people, other generations, and I look back at my first visit to the States with plain unfettered horror. I was 21 when I landed in Boston and I'm amazed I lived to be 22. I got seriously fucked up in places I shouldn't have, in Hell's Kitchen, the Barrio, and the Tenderloin. And it was brilliant.

So this song isn't hip or cool, not post-punk or industrial drone, it's simply a song that kept being played in a run down dive in New Orleans a week after Mardi Gras, 1984. We walked into the bar around 10 at night and we were there for breakfast. We drank Dixie and played pool with blokes who owned guns, (we lost). And we were asked if we came from north of the Mason-Dixon line, it appeared that the proprietor, a lady in a tight Harley-Davidson top, preferred Brits to Yankees.

It was what it was. An experience. I had people with me, unlike some of the other occasions. We had eggs for breakfast and we went to bed. To this day I'm not sure whether I even like this song, I don't think of this song when I think of New Orleans, but I think of NOLA when I hear this song.


Have You Ever Seen The Rain

Song #7 Bowie

"Some people don't dance, if they don't know who's singing,

why ask your head, it's your hips that are swinging..."

History Repeating by The Propellerheads

There's always a chance that the perfect pop song will be ignored by people because they're too cool, or too political, or too stupid or too whatever. I can't be plagued or weighed down by that, I don't want to worry if I should like Status Quo or Throbbing Gristle or Popol Vuh, I want to hear a song and say "I like it". It's inevitable that at some point in your life you'll have an awful song that reminds you of really good things, and a wonderful song that becomes associated with terrible times...

Anyway.

Over 30 years ago I was doing the Inter-rail thing through Europe and I ended up spending a lot more time in Germany than I thought I was going to. There's a really horrible attitude that the Brits have towards other Europeans, the Germans in particular; an attitude that permeates the media - the Express, the Mail and the Sun. The easy stereotypes are pushed by the lazy for the lazy and ill-informed. I loved Bavaria, the beer, the scenery, the art and the people, and the more time I spent there the more time I wanted to spend there. I had a crappy little ITT cassette player and 4/5 tapes. This is a song I played a lot. It's wonderful

Rock N Roll Suicide

Song #6 Slade

I've been trying to remember the first single I ever bought, and I think it might have been something on The Beatles' Apple label, for no other reason than I remember the differing labels on either side. Might have been the Beatles, could've been Mary Hopkin, and there's a gap... I liked all that glammy stuff that made the charts; Sweet, Wizzard, The Glitter Band, Suzi Quatro and even the arch-demon himself Gary Glitter. And I loved Slade.

I was lucky enough to see them play quite a few times, including the famous gig at Reading Festival in 1980, (a heavy metal festival nightmare which was lifted from the dregs by Noddy and co). The best night was at the University in Aberystwyth with Rob, they were magnificent that evening, raucous good-time rock 'n' roll, melancholic ballads and storming hits. I loved it. "Coz I Luv You" is a brilliant song. Simple as.


Some of the songs they wrote for Slade in Flame in particular helped me a great deal during some shitty times, and I still think of them as one of the great underrated bands of the 70s. Great tunes, great albums, great musicians, and a real sense of humour.

If Slade reformed for a few charity gigs and they didn't sell out the O2 then there ain't no sense in life


Coz I Luv You

Song #5 The Jam

I love London like no other city. I've done a lot of travelling and I always miss London, I breathe London. It's an infection, it's an obsession. I sometimes wonder whether it's because I'm not a Londoner by birth, whether the zeal of the convert is the cause.

My parents lived in London before I was born, we had relatives living in London, my Mother in particular had the London addiction. We had to visit 3/4 times a year and some of my earliest memories revolve around those trips. The Lucozade sign on thee M4, the flyover next to the Hammersmith Odeon, the Fullers Brewery, getting lost in Selfridges, the smell of the tube and the burst of air and noise as the train approached, junkies in Piccadilly, red buses and black cabs.

As I got older the trips became little pilgrimages, searching out the great record shops, places where my addiction for vinyl could be sated for a while. Not just the obvious Virgin at Marble Arch, or the original HMV on Oxford Street, but the treasure troves in Notting Hill and Camden, Rough Trade and the great stalls around Newport Market. And trips to see bands at the Electric Circus, Gossips, the Marquee, the Fulham Greyhound...

Eventually I moved to London and this song was a poem of love.

If you've spent a hot summer in any city, when you're young and have no responsibilities, when everything is possible and you can talk for hours and watch the dawn, when a bottle of wine a pack of fags and some friends is all you need in the world then "That's Entertainment" is a song of genius.

I can only suggest that you look up the lyrics for yourselves - read about the small joys and petty tragedies that make up real life. The smells and sights, victories and heartbreaks.

This is a song that can break my heart

"A police car and a screaming siren
Pneumatic drills and ripped-up concrete
A baby wailing, stray dog howling
The screech of breaks and lamplight blinking"

Martin D'Souza

That's Entertainment

Song #4 Magazine

Elvis Costello once said that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, and I think I agree. Music criticism is rarely enlightening, it all tends to boil down to "it sounds a bit like" and "I don't/do like it". So what.
It's a bright sunny day outside, but I'm feeling like crap, both physically and emotionally. I'm in pain, my life is in a freefall of chaos, and a good friend is about to enter a hospice for his last few weeks. At times like this you need music more than ever, music that stops you thinking or helps you to think, music that comforts, music that eases.
I was 21 when I lost my Mother. I lost a few days as well. I have big blank spaces around the funeral. I do remember some of the music I played though, and one of the songs was "Song From Under The Floorboards" by Magazine. I adore Magazine and The Correct Use of Soap is in my permanent top 20 albums of all time.
Listen to the keyboards, the burbling bass lines, and listen to the brilliant lyrics. This is where "pop" music goes up a few levels, the references might be Kafka, Dostoievski, socialist realism, clean industrial design...
They may be many things, but it all comes together in a clean wonderful slab of genius.
"I am angry, I am ill, and I'm as ugly as sin".
I am angry I am sad, and I have no idea where the future is taking me - I am scared

http://bit.ly/1iOYaYN

Song #3 PiL

I once asked my father what he remembered about the day The Beatles split up. Suffice to say it was obvious that he didn't give a shit. The truth is always vague and subjective, there are few absolutes, and that's the way popular culture is - we become emotionally invested in something, we obsess.

It really isn't much of an exaggeration to say that "Punk changed my life". Looking back now I try and imagine how it was in my head before the Pistols and I can't. Pink Floyd, Deep Purple, The Kinks... all stuff I liked but I had no reference.

So... When the Pistols disintegrated I was invested enough to care about what happened next - and it was wonderful.

Public Image by Public Image Ltd was epic, thundering, echoey, glorious. From the opening bass riff through the slamming drums and screeching guitars to Lydon's petulant rant against everyone. I loved it. I even loved the newspaper sleeve and the inane stories. This was an introduction to a still existing love affair with Keith Levene and Jah Wobble, (more of whom anon), and further proof that Lydon really was something special.
It was the bollocks.

http://bit.ly/1ltXXyA

Song #2 Ian Dury & The Blockheads

Another day, another shit storm. My daughter ended up in hospital with an infection, ambulance paramedics, doctors, antibiotics - the full monty. She got home though which is a real relief; and she looked a lot better when she got to bed, even if her throat made her sound like an out-take from a possession.

Song #2

I don't want this to be chronological, I want the songs to be stand alone. The connections will be pigeon holed, kept in the bubble. The memories are often intangible, there might be something there but I reach out and touch froth, and the image escapes me. I decided to throw a load of songs into a hat, to pick the music by lottery, but that felt like too much trouble... So I ended up using shuffle on my mp3 player.

Most of these tracks are going to have a distinct British feel to them, not all of them by any means, but a lot, and there's something quite beautifully perfect about the Englishness of Ian Dury & The Blockheads. Dury wrote a vernacular English poetry which was matched up to an incredible punk-funk by The Blockheads, especially the lovely basslines of Norman Watt-Roy. (My love of bass guitar is almost an obsession, I even dreamt of Barry Adamson from the Bad Seeds playing basketball a week or so ago. Is that a dangling modifier?)

Of all the tracks that I could pick I'm going with "What A Waste". I remember buying the single, and I remember the glorious hook and all the usual stuff that Stiff Records produced to go with it. The lyrics were stunningly poetic - "I could be the ticket man at Fulham Broadway Station".

I went to a gig with Rob, a mate, I can't remember the gig or the band, but I remember the vodka, the Newcastle Brown, and "What a Waste" playing on the PA. Hauntingly wonderful. Poetry, sax, bass, guitar, melancholia.

http://bit.ly/QxWk7F

Song #1 Clapton

So... I've spent some time writing the introduction.. And then changed my mind...

And this is "Song #1"

I could start with a little known Blues number, or a punk single that only 20 people ever heard, or a lieder, but I'm going to start with something far more obvious. In the mid 70s there wasn't a jukebox in the land that didn't have Eric Clapton going on about "Layla". As a 14 year old going out on the piss in a seaside town I loved it. It was the sort of music I aspired to because all the older kids, (16/17/18), were listening to it. And if you were venturing into the formica and aluminium ash-tray world of the 70s pub you needed to fit in.
Layla was one of those tracks that everyone knew, it seemed simple and direct - bloke loves woman - which was perfect in the lust soaked arena of the "Boar's head" or "White Horse.

Looking back of course I don't even know if I really liked it or nor, it was a received piece of cultural appreciation. It's special now because of where it puts me, and when it puts me. Even at the age of 50 I can still feel the rush at knowing that I was seen as being "ok" by that group I looked up to.

Growing up is shit

http://bit.ly/1nAp6Rl