Forest Hill’s pavements are covered in crazy coloured spraypaint markings put there during the big roadworks. They look strangely cool.

The summer is back. I used to be an autumn kid, but the beguiling feel of warm air on the skin is increasingly appealing to me as I get older. There’s probably some allegory in that but I can’t be arsed with Freudian musings on mortality at this point in the day.

My dear friend Matt was staying with us last night. He’s a kickass cook (check out his blog for a masterful sous-vide beef wellington recipe and, ahem, badger bourgignon) so we fired up the barbecue, Matt making a killer burger mix, and me supplying a variety of bicicletta cocktails and Aperol spritzes. Later we drifted on to a Franco Mondo Rose Barbera d´Asti Superiore Nizza red wine and a nightcap of Balvenie Caribbean cask. I absolutely love drinking like this – good friend, quality libation, nice weather. Yes.

We listened to the first live album from (forgotten?) Glasgow band called Lies Damned Lies. I had not listened to it for a long time but was completely blown away all over again. There’s a track at the bottom of this post which still gives me shivers – The Divine Image – a William Blake poem set to the most exquisite harmonies to you could hope to hear in your short-ass days on this planet. When I was playing with Iain Archer in the early nineties these guys were held in complete awe by all of the musicians around that scene – and rightly so. It’s fabulous music.

Well, I managed to write the XML importer and got a whole bunch of archive stuff online – you’ll see it if you scroll down. I need to sort out some decent navigation in this blog, and yes, that’s coming too. It was fun reading a lot of that old stuff back, from a different lifetime. It’s funny how we process memories. There is absolutely no way to distinguish a memory from last week from something that happened ten years ago in terms of clarity. We just pluck them out of the cupboard, dust them off, look at them for a bit, then put them back. So it has been with the old blog posts; time blurred into one amorphous mass.

I’m doing some production work for a Russian rock legend at the moment (life can indeed be strange). He’s very cool – a fellow by the name of Boris Grebenshchikov. His band Aquarium are usually labelled as the founding fathers of Russian rock music. Anyway, the track I’m working on has an instrument on it called a nyckelharpa. I’d never heard of it, but it is a Swedish keyed fiddle. I like the name of the instrument, that’s all.

I’m off to water my tomatoes and get some food on.

“That was the last day of June but this is the first of July”
From First of July, written by Jules Maxwell, performed by Foy Vance

On Thursday night I was sitting on a London Overground train from Whitechapel to Crystal Palace, homeward-bound. The train had just stopped at Surrey Quays. Filling all sonic space in my head was the magnificent Vesterhavet by Tobias Hellkvist, a huge ambient piece that I can’t stop listening to since I was introduced to it a few months ago. The summer sky was a darkening grey, a far cry from the delicious deep blue warmth of the week before.

There and then I made the decision to quit social media for the rest of 2017, since I’ve realised it makes me feel bad more than good at a low level. If the truth be told I think it makes most people feel like that but they cling on to it anyway; as a (real) friend put it in a Facebook comment when I announced I was packing it in for a while, “This is the sensible thing to do, but i can’t take my eyes off civilisation collapsing.”

Having seen a number of completely fake narratives presented there, I know some of those über-cool lives and goings-on are often complete fiction. I also see sides of people that I really don’t like, and that’s upsetting. I just don’t want that noise any more, so I’m going to write this blog instead.

I always have a wobble at the start, feeling it’s just too narcissistic, but I’m hoping the vibe won’t be like that. I was inspired to reignite it by my friend Foy Vance after visiting him recently. He said he used to love my old blog as it was just a diverse ramble through everything I love about life. Well, I’m converting those old posts into a form where they can be read again, for what it’s worth.

I started the original blog in Australia in 2003 when we were living in Sydney. Life was very different then. Living in Sydney for starters. Not married. No kids. Putting the finishing touches to my first album Angels in Drag. Wow. Just thinking about that makes my head spin. I remember starting the blog. I threw a textfield on the screen in Flash (remember Flash? Probably not!), wrote something in it. I had a whole day to figure out how I could write day two’s entry and navigate back to the first one. Then another day to be able to navigate any number of days. Then months. And so on, just building it myself – it was a lot of fun. Now I’m just left with a bunch of XML data files that are no use to man nor beast in their current form. The plan is to write an importer so I can bring them all into WordPress and archive them in this blog.

I’m sitting in my bed downstairs at home, listening to Vesterhavet 4 (glorious!!!) with a cup of Yorkshire Gold in hand, typing this last line before the mad flurry of geeky activity as I get the blog online. By tomorrow I’ll have figured out how to get the old stuff up and we’ll take it from there.

Just a quick note to say my grandfather John Pendry (in his 80s) has managed to get a WordPress blog up and running with only the smallest amount of assistance from me – he’s got some great thoughts on things and stories from an amazing life. Go check it out and leave him a comment xS

OldGaffer.com

Who in their right mind would go on holiday in Belgium? My friend Nikki was right to ask the question as to why we were spending 10 precious days in Northern Europe when we could have been in southern Italy or somewhere gorgeous. Well, when you have friends as cool as Monica & DDA (not to mention the adorable Nikki too) with their new baby Ume (Japanese for ‘plum’), when you love Trappist beers as much as I do, and when the best tea shops in Europe await you in Brussels, its easy to figure out why it was far from beardworthy for us to jump on the Eurostar.

What a great trip! First holiday with baby L.… he loved it, and was so chirpy and in great form for the whole time. He’s such a darling – we’re loving having him around more than you would believe.

I’m glad the response has been so good to posting Angels In Drag for free – great feedback, and encourages me to press on with the new record, which is coming along well. I’m going to be slaughtered catching up on some web projects this week, but Jules and I will get back in the swing of things next week. Its sounding really great, though very different to what I had ever thought I would do… so as an antidote I am also working on a groove record, trying to rescue some stuff I was working on with Leo Abrahams last year that never really got finished. I’m going to have some fun with that. And it will be free too.

Lordy – I spent some serious money on tea in Brussels. Way over a hundred quid… some beautiful stuff in a shop Leo had directed me to called L’Univers du thé and and I revisited my old favourite La septième tasse on Rue du Bailli – a great shop, and one I always go a bit OTT in. Magic. I had to reorganise the shelves in the kitchen cupboards to make room. I have had to divide them up into sections – India and Sri Lanka (black and green teas), Chinese – semi-fermented, green, black, aromatic and white teas, Japan – green teas / matcha and a rare Japanese red tea… then I have a Rooibos section and herbal / infusions and tisanes. God I am such a beard these days. Nah. I just like tea.

Tea and rusty guitars, like I said. Bye for now.

I have decided to post a completely free download of my album Angels In Drag for general download. All it will take is an email address and a link will be sent. Please tell everyone you know to go and grab it. I will be doing the same for the next record. For the time being iit is just the mp3 files as a ZIP, but I’m working on an accompanying Flash app that will give all the info and artwork.

(note, 2017: offline now)

Well, work on the new record is going really well – we’re working on Mondays, recording a track each time. Jules (Maxwell – my producer) has been amazing… inspiring, unbelievably musical, generous, sideways, infuriating, funny, and he’s dragging my voice kicking and screaming down into the depths. Its been a great time. We’re recording all the parts in mono using one microphone – not that this is a new technique or anything, but I didn’t imagine it would be a route I would choose. Let me explain…

When recording a drumkit, for example, most engineers would use about 10 mics, on the various drums, and in the room for ambience and attack. Its called “multitracking” and is the most common way of recording today, in this age of big stereo and hi-fi, of radio hits and that kind of nonsense. We are recording every instrument, be it an entire drumkit, grand piano, hammond organ or whacking a pole with a stick, with one microphone, just moving it to where it needs to be a hitting record. Its very “freeing” in that the ideas move faster than the technical side of recording. You get through a lot quite quickly, focusing on performance and very often capitalising on mistakes in ways you can’t when you’re waiting 10 minutes to mic up the piano. We are catching a lot of magic. OK – the end result might not sound as grand as it would if we spent all our time getting everything technically perfect, but you know what? I’m just not interested in that anymore. My favourite records almost all sound shit, or at best just reasonable. And some technically immaculate records just fail to move you – any boy band album, for example, is a case of expensive recordings or purest banality.

So – I’ll keep you posted. Moving full steam ahead, I now plan to release “Angels In Drag” source tracks as a Creative Commons licensed project – watch this space.

I don’t even know where to start… D. and L. went away to Scotland last week, and thus began a whirlwind week of gigs, music, late nights and sunshine, the strange wakings to silence and missing my little boy. But the major event was the starting of the new record!!

Paul Turner called me on Sunday to say he had spare tickets to the Lovebox Weekend gig, where Jamiroquai were headlining – a perfect way to finish a great weekend – and the band sounded great. That track “Deeper Underground” has always been my favourite Jamiroquai track, and it just rocked the whole place as the last track of the night. Awesome.

Then another gig on Monday. Last minute – my friend Foy Vance playing support to Raul Midon in La Pigalle, Piccadilly. Foy is awesome, as I have iterated many times before. I have also never seen anything like Raul Midon – he plays guitar in a very unusual style, whacking the strings to get a bass / kick drum vibe, then flicking the strings to get choppy snare sounds, backed up with funky chords and Stevie Wonder-inspired vocals and uncannily real-sounding trumpet solos. Some of his songs were a little too simplistic for my tastes, but as a sheer spectacle it was extraordinary… definitely worth seeing. On the drive home, Foy got the guitar out and we all sang songs, driving south and having a laugh.

So, the big news is that I’ve started the new record… the tracks are called Time Once A Friend, Stage Door, Dodging Bullets, Summerlight, My Concrete Heart, Be My Saving Grace, Welcome to the Light and a couple of others as yet untitled. The process has been amazing – Jules Maxwell is producing the record, and his working methods have thrown a spanner in my life. He has me singing very low, in my bass register, and I’m actually learning to enjoy it. I can sing really low, but just rarely do – he thinks thats where the magic is, and who am I to argue? He’s always been a big inspiration to me. Of course, I want it to be known that this is a record for completely free release. When its done, it will be uploaded for anyone to get.

Right – must go. I’ll be back on later, hopefully

Disclaimer: I am not a football fan. I just love the big events. And with a pretty good memory for names and numbers, I can pull off some pretty good fakery during World Cups, fooling even diehard fans in bars.

I was thinking about the strangeness of synchronicity… in my street, we were out watering plants, a babble of neighbourhood chatter over fences, cups of tea, the ticking over of a perfectly ordinary Sunday. Yet in Germany, the biggest sporting event in the world, the expectation of nations, a time for heroes and heroic actions… Zinedine Zidane’s last game at the highest level, and the possibility of a legendary end to a glorious career by lifting the World Cup for France, a dream taking shape in legend and in the streets of Paris.

So when he headbutted Marco Materazzi, it was the moment of madness that says so much about the frailty of humanity. We are heroes destined for nothing more than a crunch under heels. A moment out of control can cost you your dignity, your life’s work, your dreams… and to see it happen to Zidane was heartbreaking, although it is hard to feel sorry for him in the same way as it is hard to empathise with the drunk on probation getting arrested for punching someone outside the pub and heading back to jail. It was a horrible incident, and after all the energy and worldwide elation and dedication that goes with the tournament, it was just sickening to hear it finish in a chorus of boos and whistles as the French fans just derided the officials and the Italians. Football was dead for a while. If only the last match had been Italy – Germany, we could have felt better about life.

As for Federer, he is the last salvation of the Sunday Sporting Spirit – yet another display of magic and beautiful power. I remember I had only just started my original journal when he won Wimbledon in 2003 – we were living in Sydney and I was suffering the dreadful commentary and the fact that the Aussies use the changes of ends for adverts…

Speaking of commentary… PLEASE, PLEASE. BBC – offer John Motson a retirement package he can’t refuse. Get that USELESS MAN off the air. And let him take Mark “I reside in a toolbox” Lawrenson with him. Most of the time I feel Motson is actually commenting on old match recorded in the early 70s. “Incisive” is hardly his middle name. And as for Lawrenson… save it for the pub, son.

Rant over. Bed calls. D. has just booked train tickets to go to Scotland at the end of this month, during which week I will start recording the new record.

A fine old day. Only because there were a couple of big storms, which I love. When the thunder really gets overhead, I get an unsuppressable urge to go out in the rain. I loved Sydney for the big summer storms every afternoon… these little ones in London pale in comparison.

Well, its been more web stuff. Did a holding page for Iain Archer using some nifty Flash filter techniques to create ripples on a water surface. I really like the artwork for the new album “Magnetic North” – lots of sea, water. Iain is an ever-maturing artist – I loved his last album “Flood The Tanks”, but by all reports, the new one is just stunning. He and I come from the same town, and there’s something in his words and lyrics that resonates deeply with me. Just a phrase he sent through to describe his sound… “The engines of small boats” – I just get it.

Sometimes I hate the internet. My domain “angelsindrag.com” expired, and some fucker somewhere has a computer automatically buying up expired domains… including angelsindrag.com. Obviously it’s now just a list of links like so many other “kiting” domains… it makes me sick. Whatever you do don’t go to that site.

I’ve been really enjoying playing guitar for the past few days, writing some new stuff. I have to do a “demo tape” for Jules Maxwell, who is going to produce the new piece of work. I hope to have it finished by the end of the year. I’m going to record a piece with Leo that we used to play – “These foolish things” by Nina Simone. Just two guitars and my ropey old vocals. Its a sweet old song and just made sense for us to finish our manic set of loops and nonsense.

Right – single malt at my side, its time for a late night bath and a gaze out the window to see if any stars made the grade past the London smog. I’ve decided to post some stuff from my grandfather’s autobiography from time to time. John Pendry – He’s had an amazing life – here’s a story from when he was a boy growing up in Africa.

The case of the surgical saw

I loved the sensation of the sand under my bare feet and when out of parental gaze I would kick off my shoes and run about barefoot. Totally daft behaviour, there were all sorts of grubs and creatures just waiting for lunch, and, of course, I paid the penalty, I contracted a sore on the instep of my left foot which would not heal. Years later Willie told me it was Beri Beri, but I think she must have been mistaken.

We had no private medicine, there were doctors provided by our avuncular Colonial Service and they operated from the hospital. If you were sick you went there unless you were too sick, and then they came to you. I had earlier contracted a severe and persistent case of malaria, so I was well versed in the habits of our local medical profession.

The sore made itself a nuisance at about the time Brian was born, so Willie had her hands full and as I knew most of the medicals socially as well as professionally, she sent me up to the hospital on my own for treatment. As I remember it, there was little to choose between the architectural design of the hospital and our bungalow, just a few extra stabs with the bungalow rubber stamp and hey presto, a drawing for a hospital.

Someone or other must have told me to wait because I was seated on the veranda at the back of the hospital kicking my heels and looking round me. People passed and spoke and so time moved on until a doctor stopped, looked at me and said something like ‘I won’t be long’, and disappeared, only to reappear with a bone-saw in his hand. It was similar to the things butchers use, a coarse version of a hacksaw. ‘Won’t be long, Jack,’ he said brandishing the saw and smiling from ear to ear like a pantomime demon, ‘When I’ve finished with this chap you’re next,’ and he gave another flourish with the saw and disappeared.

I let out a screech and my feet barely touched the ground as I ran crying all the way home. Some joke! The fact that I remember it is not surprising, it is still vivid. What I really wonder is whether it really had any long term affect on me. I probably had nightmares for a day or two, but at that age, about seven, I believe there was too much going on for it to be taken seriously and I’m sure my parents were not too bothered. Jung, Adler, Freud and litigation were not on everyone’s lips and in those days, it was probably all treated as a silly prank. Pity! Today I’m sure I’d have been scarred for life and only compensation in six figures could possibly assuage the hurt.

John Pendry (1922 – 2014)

I just got a copy of Leo Abrahams’ new record ‘Scene Memory’ through the post. Much to my amazement he called me on Friday to say that he had dedicated the record to me. I was completely overcome and very emotional. I have a deep bond with the record – it pulled me through some of the hardest days and nights of my life, when L. was very young and I was spending days in the shell of what is now our home, hammering floorboards and listening to an unmastered version on a crappy little stereo. I have to say that listening to it again, its one of the best records I’ve ever heard… the word “perfection” keeps springing to mind.

I love Vangelis’ soundtrack to Blade Runner, as it takes me into a certain atmospheric headspace, and I love the work of Brian Eno, for sheer space and simplicity, but Scene Memory eclipses all of this with a purity I can’t quite describe… all recorded using only electric guitars but with a range of other-wordly textures and sounds that only Leo can get. He’s absolutely incredible, end of story – maybe even a genius, for real, and the only one I know. And this album should be bought by everyone who ever claimed they liked music.

When I listen to a record like that, I toss a spiritual coin. If it comes up heads, I want to start recording and never stop. Tails, I want to sell my gear and become a park-keeper. But this time, against all odds, it has landed on its edge and turned into a rainbow – I have hope, and faith, that if you stay true to your purpose, you can make amazing music and it will find a home, even if that is just one person in one house in one town in one country in the world. Leo made this album because it was in him, with no agenda, no A&R person breathing down his neck… so inspiring. And now its out there.

Now the techie web bit. I’ve only left this in to highlight how much has changed in the past 10 years.

I, on the other hand, have spent the weekend trying to get my head round Spry (note, 2017: pretty much dead tech now, link goes nowhere) from Adobe, basically a JavaScript framework for Ajax. I think they are going to be dedicating quite a bit of time and energy to it over the next few months, so although its far from perfect now, it will be pretty formidable by the time the public release happens later in the year. There are major problems with standards as things go, but the code is simple, and looks so like ActionScript that its an easy transition for me to make. I’ve downloaded ActionScript 3 as well, but when I’ll get to have a proper look at that is anyone’s guess.

What is Ajax? Put very simply, its a new way of making web pages work and update the content in them without having to refresh the whole page. Web pages will start to feel more like applications you use on your computer – when you click something, something else happens, there and then. No long drawn-out page refresh. Its going to be nice, and I suppose that’s enough. People are connecting Ajax with Web 2.0, a topic I ranted and raved about a couple of days ago… but Ajax is just the means, and the concept of Web 2.0 is the end. We’ll see what happens. I just hope to be able to keep pressing on regardless.

End of techie web bit

Its so damn hot. Cider on ice weather. Having wee L. means we can’t really go out in blistering sun – he will just burn up, and you just can’t do that to a wee baby. We stuck him in his paddling pool at about 5pm yesterday and it was just so cute. Having so much cuteness around you every day is fantastic. I however did manage to get the garden sorted a bit – FERNS! Bloody ferns – have you ever tried to uproot a fern? Let me tell you, its a nightmare. They are like meteors that crash into your pots from outer space, they go so deep. And they are like big prehistoric dinosaur knuckles. Took me ages to get two of them out from my roses. Everything in the garden is really suffering with the heat and sunshine… and with the drought order in place, we’re trying to cut back on our water use even more than usual. We recycle L.’s bath water and siphon it out to water them, but its not enough in this climate. Poor plants.

Right… I must tootle on and get on with stuff.