Taking the train to the Marsden Jazz Festival

Take The M-Train

With rhythm rippling over the River Cole,

Venues across the village

will hum and chime to sounds within.

So, listen. No, listen. Lis-un.

Drums beating in the air, crash, click, snare, snare,

Trumpets screaming passion, awake, aware.

Trombonist mouthing notes, sharing belly fire

like moonshine, intoxication.  

Vibraphone taps in the Riverhead,

Guitars dangling Django, strumming ipp-ipp-ipp.

Vocalists belt out standards from the Bandstand,

Music humanized through harmonization.

In the Mechanics Hall, newbies and die-hards travel,

Soundscapes landscaping thoughts.

Mimicking the valley, stumbling up, tumble down,

Melody and traveller as one.

Then a hush, just enough for a fleeting bleat.

What happened?

Those drums skipped four-six to five-eight,

That horn blew hair straight,

Their keys switched key spectacularly.

Afterwards, appreciative applause a-plenty.

Notes: This was my submission for the Poster Poems organised by Marsden the Poetry Village during the Marsden Jazz Festival (launch event). The twenty five Poster Poems will be at locations across the village, allowing visitors to wander in words in music during the festival (and for a few weeks afterwards).

My poem wasn't selected, though next year...

Just a test

I've recently made a change to my music listening habits. Gone is the preselection of only having a couple of albums on my phone, slowly I will fit it all on.

Partly this is because I miss having access too all my music; partly this is down to taking time on holiday to listen to an album in full.

With that in mind, expect more 'reviews' of what I'm listening, starting today. This morning I've got the Beastie Boys's Hello Nasty playing. This record is always a revelation, starts off bold and then continues to rise. I'm always thrown by the sequence of Remote Control into Song For The Man. 

Intergalactic is one of my most favourite songs. All the elements that go into that song, all the cultural references, both at the time and those that came later (Star Trek Into Darkness, anyone, or Star Wars The Force Awakens).

Underneath it all is simple messages told clearly. To borrow a line from Super Disco Breakin' "because when we're getting down we are all equal."

This is evermore relevant this week and for the future.

Time travel with music

There's a scene in Before Sunset[1] were Ethan Hawk's character is explaining the idea he has for his next book, in which a song encompasses both his character's present day and past. It is an interesting scene, and without spoilers, there's a few things of note that happen that you will just have to watch the film to catch up on.

The idea that music has time travelling qualities is not my own, and I'm not really in the mood to trawl the internet and my book and film collection for references for examples (let's face it, music is pretty self-referential in this aspect too). However, with the release of the latest James record[2], I've been listening to older James records as a reminder of both why I like them as a band and, consequentially, my youth.

We can get lots of reminders of our youths. First up and simple, shopping. A trip to Game recently revealed that said store has a better recall of my previous addresses than I do. Seemingly, when I bought games for my Playstation in 1997 I signed up a loyalty card using my then address in Poplar, East London. When I was presented with this information I got a little flustered, my memories of that house are not overly great (my flatmates were great, the situation wasn't). Yet, there's an odd connection to be found between the then-me and the now-me, a time travelling man[3].

Back to James. When I first started listening to them (John Peel, early nineties radio memories, when I listened to lots of music on Radio 1) it was primarily the name that picked my ears. James, named after me. Of course, Peel's description of them and their fans also helped (think he said cult at some point, though it might have been about Ned's Atomic Dustbin[4]). The singles off Gold Mother[5] struck a cord with me and led me to buying that lp. On tape. Now mangled.

Gold Mother and the following two albums, Seven and Laid[6], provided part of an considerably prolonged soundtrack to my late teenage life. I developed and grew as the records developed and grew. In parallel my life and those records continued to develop over the twenty-four and twenty-two years since, like Brian Eno's Discreet Music[7], initial shapes forming, colliding and then producing new meanings. Which is why in the last week I have been singing Next Lover in St Stephen's Church grounds and Low Low Low on the way to work (well, not exactly sing out loud). 

Most revealing though was Top Of The World. Here was one of my most favourite songs a new, those words, new shapes as I approach being older. 

I should listen properly, closely. Music is a good background soundtrack yet sometimes it is nice to have it there, full attention, like a good book, the experience of just listening.

Notes and references

1 - Richard Linklater, 2004.

2 - What, you didn't know? The Girl At The End Of The World.

3 - Did you catch the reference to the Rolling Stones in this blog post.

4 - Fun, Goon Show fact, Ned's Atomic Dustbin named themselves after a Goon Show.

5 - Original release was 1990, though 'my' version came out a year later.

6 - 1992 and 1993.

7 - Fun, Brian Eno and James fact. Laid was produced by Eno, who seemingly worked out how James worked and produced a second album at the same time, Wah Wah. Eno plays on the latest James record, too.

Lizzie and Sam not Rosie and Simon

Sometimes I amaze even myself[1]. When I looked back at my last proper blog entry prior to arranging my notes for this one, I was thrown by how things revolve.

My last entry was for Planetine. Last week I received news from Ryan, the curator, that we were going ahead. This week we held a meeting to confirm the exhibition would open on Wednesday 4 May 2016 in the Corn Exchange, Leeds. As I made my way through March Planetine came along regularly, I wrote and rewrote poems, made plans and discarded plans, and more than once almost gave up and asked to be removed from the project.

As March hurtled towards the Easter weekend, my thoughts had already settled on what I had wanted to write about. I had chance to do some shopping for books in Cambridge and have purchased some music. 

The books were mostly secondhand, and, aside from my usual authors, some poetry made its way onto my shelves. I have liked poetry for such a long time yet didn't buy a great deal. Full priced books are an investment which I didn't want to risk, where as books like the Forward Poetry collections were very useful yet feel limited. One of my purchases was by Kate Tempest, and I remember the incredibly snooty comments made about it in the introduction of that year's Forward collection.

I had been turned on to looking for poetry books by Jen Campbell as part of the workshop she ran and I participated. This interest was further stoked following a conversation with a colleague who also writer, I had asked her about spoken word performance and from that I came across Leeds University's spoken word society. I think I might give this a try.

Music was more exploitative and less new music exploration. James released a new album in March, so I rattled along to Jumbo Records to buy it on release date. I haven't bought a record on release day for years and then two in two months, James's The Girl at the End of the World and Muddy Suzuki's Good Grief. I would recommend both records.

There was another cyclical thing that happened in March and early April though I figure, dear reader, you don't want to read about food intolerance just yet.

Notes and references
1 - Yeah, another early start with the Star Wars references (George Lucas, 1977).
Mystery note - Can millionaires claim to be street fighting man. I ask as I am neither, though that song by that band does pose some questions. 

Round-Up '90

A rough collection of the notes I've made for blogging recently. 

December music trawl trawls into January

I'll be honest, what started out as a good idea got caught in what John Lennon called life. I thought thirty-odd songs that I like and wanted to share. 

Urged on by friends, spending time listening to videos on YouTube, it was a great idea. Maybe. My videos weren't that out-there, the left-field I covered didn't compare to the left-field of friends (or more correctly, I wouldn't compare my left-field videos to the awesome left-field suggested by others), and then there's life.

Life. And unfortunately life can be annoying. So maybe I shall record my December trawl with just one video, which links into something else I'll be writing about later.

King of Spain, The Tallest Man on Earth

Lindi Ortega/Doubts

Lindi Ortega is currently touring in Europe, playing live tracks from her most recent lp, Faded Gloryville. This is a good lp, I'd recommend it for a listen, Lindi is one of those artists who seemingly (for me) just go and it's good and entertaining and sings about stuff I think about. 

At the Brudenell Social Club on 26 January 2016 Lindi introduced Faded Gloryville as one of those places one ends up in if they are washed up or are passing through when one is having doubts. Artists have doubts, everyone does, where they are going, what they need to do, when will their time be. While that lp is something I've listened to a number of times, watching her introduce it that way live kind of made it even more approachable. 

The lovely thing about watching Lindi Ortega live is the surprises. Dancing, encores, fantastic instrument playing (the guitar sound was awesome, but that bass), just a good night all round. 

The Buried Giant Review

I was given this book as a birthday present at Christmas, having spent most of the year looking forward to reading it. Now, with about thirty-forty pages left to go I find myself trying to stretch out the experience. Since I reached page 250 I've started and read about a third of Terry Pratchett's Sourcery and advanced considerably through my bus-read, Dune.

There is not much left to do. Thirty pages is a good, relaxing evening session, an hour of really intense ignore-everything reading, it's not going to take long. So it might have to be finish, break for a day or two, then crack on with reading it again.

The curious thing is I've only ever done this with a handful of books at various times in my life. When I first got reading as opposed to having reading thrust on me as a product of school, I read through Pratchett's Mort three or four times. I was about fourteen I think (rough guess) and had been introduced to the series by a rather enthusiastic uncle. The next time around it was Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout. 

While rereading Mort was about exploring the joy of reading, rereading Sombrero Fallout was the joy of exploring where thoughts and words can take you. Both books are fantastical, though not the same kind of fantasy, and both books feature keys and time pieces. The third book I've ever reread straight away is Bo Fowler's Scepticism Inc. I am led to believe this is a natural phenomenon which does not need exploring.

Kirkstall Spoken Word and Performance Festival

Working on Kirkstall Festival has been one of the best experiences of my life. Actually, community activism has led to some of the best and most beneficial experiences of my life, the Festival, Kirkstall in Bloom, the On The Edge Festival, all of those things have made me realise the link between myself and my community. I am firmly of the belief that one should establish that link as soon as they can and then work on it for as long as they can. 

Myself, preparations for this year's Festival are underway (feels like it's been on since the day after the last one). And it will be good, packed with activities, stalls and performance. You should come, you should.

I've been thinking that beyond Kirkstall Festival's main activities there would be the potential to hold an event that focused more on spoken word and performance. Both of those are part of the main festival but I want to move them centre stage, and bring together poetry, drama, performance, comedy, story-telling, and presentations.  

There's a couple of possible shapes for how this could happen. An all-in-one-day festival with multiple stages or a series of daily events linked by the theme of the SWAP. It's early days, and there's a lot of things happening, but it is a good idea that could fly.

Poetry Workshops

I've signed up to a poetry workshop run by Jen Campbell. It will be exciting to see how I do, I've always written and made notes for poems but never really forced it anywhere. There's a lot of scraps of notes of lines, serious stanzas or silly single sentences of words that amuse me. In the run up to the workshop I made an effort to do two things, firstly, I've been working on something linked to the few lines below, secondly, a draft of a full poem released elsewhere on my blog.

{Poem removed}


Is the earth flat?

In The Doubtful World Of Speculation

I've finally managed to go for a bicycle ride in Cambridge. On a previous Boxing Day I managed a run around Chesterton and the river, this time I was led along the river out towards Fen Ditton[1] then back into the very heart of the city.

Cambridge strikes me as curious city, calamitous and claustrophobic, yet calm clearings in the Commons and along the Cam. I have only dipped my toes into odd pages of Jeff VanderMeer's Ambergris[2], so that curiously cruel city is not a good comparison, though there's something mystical about Cambridge. Cambridge features in Douglas Adams's books, as a city of holistic detectives and time travelers[3].

Holistically there is a lot to take in. Bicycling helps, as it connects a person to an area in the same way a speculative text delivers a reader a world to explore. If one cannot be at one with the universe, the saying goes, at least be at one with one's bicycle. And with one's book.

Out on the Cam I was heading to a particular universe, though my head was full of the first part of Kazuo Ishiguro's The Buried Giant[4]. Here the world is shrouded in 'mist,' a forgetful, confused condition that is making Britons and Saxons do irrational things by amplifying their superstitions and beliefs. 

One particular section featured a ferryman and a widow, and relayed a tale of an crowded island that people went to seek solitude. It reminded me a little a lot about the Earthsea Quartet's The Farthest Shore[5], this island that helped individuals forget the toils of their day-to-day lives. In both books there is a link between forgetfulness and forgetting pain and the truth of being human, to die.

The pan-dimensional beings represented by mice are also human in that they will die. In Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy[6] the order the construction of Earth so that it can work out what the ultimate question to life, the universe, and everything actually was[7]. Prior to switching on Deep Thought there is a debate on the need for 'clearly defined areas of doubt and speculation[8].' 

Fiction texts are good at 'clearly defined areas of doubt,' they allow for the widest, wildest speculations. Yet doubts are to be avoided. Blade Runner[9], Ghost In The Shell[10], Sleeper[11], all discuss themes of what makes us human, what makes our experiences, what is it to be human.

To discuss Sleeper in particular, the film uses comedy to explore the extraordinary ordinary of the future. Dressed as a robotic manservant while his owner is throwing a fascistic party, Miles Monroe mixes food powder and water. In Star Wars The Force Awakens[12], Rey makes food in a similar way. Here the ordinary becomes extraordinary, we all need to eat, we just need to wait for the powdered bread. Or as the narrative of Back to the Future Part Two[13] has it, we have to wait for hoverboards.

A theme that is strong in both Sleeper and The Force Awakens[14] is whether the protagonist (or antagonist) is doing the right thing. Miles Monroe avoided eating red meat and smoking cigarettes as it would, he was led to believe, extend his life. Kylo Ren knows what he needs to do to both return to the light and to fully embrace the dark side. Both of these choices involve his family in general and father in particular. 

[Spoiler one paragraph] Those Skywalkers, always suffering with abandonment issues or problems with their father and grandfathers. Though this is familiar ground for JJ Abrams, as both Star Trek and Star Trek Into Darkness[15] rely on the relationships Kirk and Spock have with their fathers and their fathers' actions.

[Spoiler ends]

Back to the Cam and Cambridge. Along the river and along the footpaths and banks there is doubt, though not the doubt of existence but the quandary of whether or not my tyre would slip on wet leafs or mud. In my extraordinary ordinary I think I'd opt for better drained footpaths.

Notes and references
1 - "Honestly, with my hearing I thought you said Fern Ditton," as if that helps.
2 - City of Saints and Madmen (Third edition), 2004, Tor Books.
3 - Dirk Gently's Holistic Detective Agency, William Heinemann, 1987. I would also like to mention that other timetraveller Adams was involved with, Doctor Who, in Shada (Douglas Adams and Gareth Roberts, 2012, BBC Books).
4 - 2015, Faber & Faber.
5 - Ursula K. Le Guin, 1972, Atheneum Books. 
6 - Douglas Adams, 1979, Pan Books
7 - The Mice had already received the ultimate answer, though I wonder if this might have anything to do with one of the Pyramid's proclamations to the residents of Night Vale (The Pyramid, 15 October 2012) that 'some of you have been given the questions, some have been given the answers, though not all questions and answers will match.' 
8 - I'm paraphrasing this as I don't have a copy at hand to check.
9 - Ridley Scott, 1982
10 - Mamoru Oshii, 1995
11 - Woody Allen, 1973
12 - J J Abrams, 2015
13 - Robert Zemeckis, 1989
14 - And to be fair, in all of the text mentioned in this.
15 - J J Abrams, 2009 and 2013

Embrace each other, embrace the Other

It's Monday 4th January 2016 so I am going to assume that we are all comfortable talking about Star Wars plot revelations. No? Well, bare with me and we can both contribute to the greater understanding of human behaviour[1].

'There is another,' Yoda's words to Obi-wan in Empire Strikes Back (Irvin Kershner, 1980)[2] are a sound logical start. Otherness, in the shape of the unknown or different, provides the foundation for examining the human condition in its messy, all-too-human glory. We are not known to each other in the way each other knows themselves. Luke's sister is unknown, Luke's father is unknown, Luke is unknown to himself.

It is only through resolving our conflict with the Other that we can progress, narratively speaking. Acceptance leads to progression, continuing the conflict with the Other can only be reactionary and keep the status quo. The status quo can be very comforting, free from conflict of conscious or thought, where as progression is hard.

Fiction, along with art and music, can offer ways to resolve the conflict over human behaviour. The creator can try to express that deep message from within that states who they are, where they are coming from, and why they are here. It is not easy, and certainly open to misunderstanding and miscontextualisation, but progress is hard, progression is never meant to be anything other than difficult.

Through this difficulty comes a second conflict, a conflict of confidence. Am I doing the right thing? Ray Bradbury expresses this conflict through Captain Beatty in Fahrenheit 451: "Where's your common sense? None of those books agree with each other[3]." What can we do other than burn when no one can agree? Beatty is an exaggeration of the conflict 'ignorance is bliss when knowledge is confusing.'

Yet is it that confusing? Beatty's description of the problem, a lack of 'common sense,' could be seen as a lack of critical thinking. Humans are hardwired to evaluate their surroundings, to process their environment and deal with it accordingly. Picking between two different berries, one poisonous and one not, is not a thousand miles different from picking between two different theories; one selects the berries and literary theories based on their experience and perspective[4]. 

Experience and perspective can have a large contribution to how humans interact, and reading fiction contributes to gaining the unacquirable experience and perspective. David Commer Kidd and Emanuele Castano examined how literary fiction led to better performance on tests of affective Theory of Mind and cognitive Theory of Mind. Theory of Mind being the skill that enables humans to 'understand others' mental states' allowing for complex social relationships[5].

There is still that difficulty in acquiring the knowledge though there is a palpable gain in experience, therefore a palpable benefit in how humans interact. By using this knowledge, by resolving some of the conflict one has with the Other, one can move towards a state of unotherness. It is not possible to know everything about the Other, it is only possible to know enough to allow for social interaction, and one has to accept and tolerate this new conflict. By ignoring the process of gaining this knowledge one becomes reactionary, fighting to keep the status quo rather than progress. As J.B. Priestley notes in English Journey[6]: "[The world is more provincial now]. It must be when there is less and less tolerance in it, less free speech, less liberalism. Behind all the new movements of this age, nationalistic, fascistic, communistic, has been more than a suspicion of the mental attitude of a gang of small town louts ready to throw a brick at the nearest stranger."

The small town lout is not a reader. The small town lout clings to the small amount of knowledge and experience they have that allows them to resist the other. The small town lout can appear to have a lot of knowledge though underneath the surface, underneath the fair words, there is the foul feeling of reactionary thoughts at play. The small town lout lacks confidence to allow complex social relationships.

Which is a shame, when one thinks about it.

Notes and References
1 - Bjork (Human Behaviour, One Little Indian, 1993) provides a very good guide on the anthropological study of humans, and what to do if one should get too close.
2 - Keep up, dear Reader, did you all think I'd reveal plot details for The Force Awakens? I mean, it's pretty difficult keeping Elo Asty's death a secret. Oh crap, did I just say Elo Asty dies. Oh crap, did I just swear again. Crap. 

And yes, that joke was brought to you via Love Actually (Richard Curtis, 2003).
3 - p43, Grafton Books, 1987.
4 - "Johnny, have you been eating poisonous post-modernist structural berries again?, you know what happened last time, you where sick for a week and threw-up a version of Hamlet your stomach had been working on."
5 - Comer Kidd, David, and Castano, Emanuele. "Reading Literary Fiction Improves Theory of Mind." Science Vol. 342 no. 6156 (2013): pp. 377-380
6 - p155-p156, Penguin Books, 1981.

Music and the environment

Let's celebrate. Let's shout out loud those times when the music we're listening to in our heads or physically chimes with our environment. 

Share the joy of when the beat of the track is mimicked by the external sound of a forklift truck reversing. Tell someone, any one, everyone, when the heavy rain starts just as the cymbal is hit.

Just as the echo chamber is released.

Just as synthesiser goes through seventeen shades of the chord A-Minor.

Or that beat you're moving to, the sound of the chain of a skip-truck making out the tink, tink, tink of a cowbell or triangle in your head.

Loop in, in your head, that is your music and the environment.

Bridging gaps between things: Reading And Writing In The Digital Age (Ilkley Literature Festival)

It must be fair to say that given the title of my blog I'm probably going to be talking about music in all its forms and books in all their genre. Even when I try discussing something else those two things shoehorn themselves in, though most of the time I'm already there, keeping the door open for them to sneak in.

I give quite a lot of thought to writing. I am a writer in the same way a person with a camera on their phone is a photographer[1], capturing things that catch my interest for a limited audience of one, myself. My interaction with the books and music I write about is essentially just an attempt to capture that joy of knowing and sharing that looked.

Ilkley has a literature festival[2], and at the weekend I attended a session on reading and writing in the digital age. The Chair was Claire Malcolm[3], and Jen Campbell[4], Rachel Kerr[5], and Simon Savidge[6] were the panelists. There were some very interesting points made by all three panelists and the Chair, and given the interested parties in the audience (I have to assume there were other writers, bloggers, vloggers, podcast creators and curators in the Playhouse) all of these will be picked over elsewhere[7]. I shall write about the things that pricked my ears and led to conversations on the way home.

Instead of getting all Dickens-esque on you by stating there is nothing new, there is everything new, I noticed that the Chair and the panelists all discussed the internet in terms of making it easier to bridge the gap between different things. Online one can find groups with similar interests, similar desires, and therefore share similar tastes.

Interestingly, the power of bloggers and all also came up. Partly in how they help the conversations and partly in how authors can (again) bridge the gap between themselves and their audience. Rachel Kerr gave quite a few examples of how Unbound helps make this happen commercially; Jen Campbell and Simon Savidge gave the reviewer/commentator/interviewer/bookseller side of this interaction. Simon, who is always fantastic to listen too, gave the view as one of the many, us book addicts. Actually, all of them did.

I digress. At the end of the session there was a questions from the audience section. One writer asked how they could use the internet to market their work more effectively without "getting bogged down with Facebook and Twitter." The advice was that 'getting bogged down' is exactly what they should be doing, making connections with groups with similar interests and tastes. Jen Campbell had the best suggestion in that the writer should sell by not selling their work but selling themselves. 

Internet reviewers' responsibility when writing about older work was raised. It was generally agreed that when discussing such books one should mention the age at which it was written. Sat at home later it occurred to me that there is another side to this question, that of how historical novelists handled the times they write about.

Indulgent booksellers engaging in their favourite pastime of being negative. I had never seen Jen Campbell speak live[8] though knew of the vlogs and Twitter account, so it was good to hear her input as a bookseller. Possibly because I spend my time in record shops but I didn't know digital sales for ebooks had plateaued. Jen managed to conjure up an image of a typical bookseller singing the Frazer refrain of "we're doomed, doomed" while also selling more children's books. Jen celebrated the state of book sales and reading.

Imagine my incredulity when there was something a panel member discussed something I disagreed with. Luckily everyone was sat down and there was strong spirits available nearby.

Immense numbers of books are published ever year. Rachel Kerr suggested this was upwards of 200,000 and may be 'a bad thing'; Jen Campbell raised "Super Thursday"; and Simon Savidge and Jen both discussed the number of review copies they are sent both solicited and unsolicited[9]. Volume is a difficult thing, one can't encourage readers to find connections between books and authors whilst also calling for the number of books and authors to be restricted.

Individual taste also plays a part. Simon Savidge mentioned the individualistic nature of books (and ultimately book reviewing), and here there should be celebration. Celebrate all reading, from ghost written celebrities to writing about ghosts.

If volume is a problem show where and how it is a problem. All those books have a market, it might not be the size the publisher wants, but it's there, people want to read it. Eventually everything finds itself on the backlist, waiting patiently to be found and cherished somewhere, somewhen, by someone. 

In Ilkley there is Grove Books and Grove Music. Even though I was there for the literature festival I didn't buy a book. Instead I found a collection of Modern Jazz Quartet albums on CD. While I had one vinyl lp before the flood[10], and had heard other tracks by MJQ before, this was a bit of a find.

Precisely for the same reason that all but one paragraph in this entry starts with the letter 'i', one should always take a trip downstairs, through cupboards to Narnia, ask to take a look out in the back, or demand to see the special stuff. It might not look special to begin with...

Notes
1 - Here is a challenge for you, at what point is something a Something? Acknowledgement of one's work by others, receipt of payment for one's work, or actually doing something?
2 - Actually, since living in Yorkshire I've grown evermore impressed with the total amount of stuff that is on. Morley was the first literature festival I went too, there's crime in Harrogate, and books in Huddersfield, Halifax, Headingley, all over.
3 - chief executive of New Writing North, a great regional resource, twitter
4 - Booktuber, bookseller and book writer, twitter
5 - Unbound, twitter
6 - Blogger and organiser for the Green Carnation Prize
7 - I shall now attempt to bring as many of these posts together here, adding over time:
Simon Savidge - A Weekend in Ilkley (and Ilkley Book Festival!)
Jacqueline Saville on The Tip-Tap Of Monkey Keyboards
8 - I had seen Simon Savidge previously in Leeds, discussing his work and the Green Carnation Prize.
9 - Encouragingly, either collectively or individual of each other, they had good coping mechanisms.
10 - Lonely Woman, and yep, that flood.

Take A Bath With Bubbles

Like Author Dent trying to link the words 'yellow' and 'bulldozer' together, or a festival goer weighing the difference between Metallica and Mumford & Sons, I find myself with ideas I cannot easily resolve.

At the moment I have a couple of ideas and thoughts that I'd like to resolve but for time and knowledge I can't.

For example, wouldn't The History of Interpersonal Relationships As Told By Discarded Clothing Items be an interesting book. Or Sour Soya Coffee might be an extended mystery thriller poem set in and around the coffee houses of Leeds. And how about the Timon of Athens Guide to PFI Schemes?

One such thought was bubble tea. Some know, some don't know, some come to know. I didn't know, and at Wickerman Festival there was the physical representation of it. Bubble Tea had a stall offering, well, tea and bubble tea.

While wanting to find out but not wanting to commit to ordering bubble tea, it was left well alone. What makes the bubbles? Who handles the tea? Why bubble tea and not tea bubble? Will it be possible to separate the two, or are the two elements forever connected like a overly-romanticized account of a pair of swans?

The answers to this and other questions take time. Time, and distance, time, distance and space. Mm, stay on target, James.

In the Grand Arcade, Leeds, there is Zaap Thai, purveyors of Thai street food. And sellers of bubble tea, a mixture of green tea, milk and balls of chewy tapioca. When I am in again I think I will try it. Zaap Thai is an interesting and very good, tasty food.

Street food is an odd phenomenon for me. It is very 'now' and 'new', a shiny badge that a food retailer has to display. This is 2015 and 'authentic' street food has arrived.

At the moment I am reading Future Days and A Very Short Introduction To Ethnomusicology. In both books there is a conflict taking place, Tim Rice discusses how the field of ethnomusicology started with seemingly hard, fast ideas about which music was worthy of study and that which was not. Nowadays the field has expanded to all music, thankfully disregarding the notion of good and bad music.

In David Stubbs's book, a fantastically detailed retelling of German music focusing on bands like Can and Faust, there are many discussions of how Krautrock intersected with high and low German culture. Krautrock is the handy if almost completely useless means that these kinds of acts were described as, though 'herbrock' doesn't really cover it. Kraftwerk to Nue! covered in one word?

Another theme of both books is that of authenticity. Which brings us back to street food. In Camden, London, there is an amazing array of street food, from around the world. Only I visited in 1996, it must be amazingly fresh and modern now.

Music is open to interpretation, the receiver receiving a different message to use one the creator creates. Does it matter if the creator uses electronica where once an electric guitar would be expected?

And there is the real issue. Expectation, both individual and collective. What is the receiver expecting when listening to Autobahn as opposed to (Get Your Kicks) On Route 66? Why do some listeners react negatively against one while celebrating the other, what are the real differences in the songs beyond the guitar and the electronics?

When I run my own record shop I think I shall just two sections. The first is 'All Music', which should be quite self explanatory and allows all sorts of stock to rub shoulders. The second section of selected singles will 'Get Over It', which I shall stock with versions of OK Go!'s early release.

'Getting high on the random association vide'

The Marvel universe is the universe of outsiders. Alexander Trocchi's Young Adam is perhaps purposefully an outsider. Adam is the first man according to Christianity. Adam and Eve were the first mutants in Scottish literature.

I make associations with everything[1], mostly at random but not at random. These things are in my head, along with everything else.

There are a lot of things I find confusing, both inside and outside my head, so associations kind of help make sense out of nonsense. I tried making a list[2] but that itself became a massively branching interconnected tree.

The main problem I faced was where to start, as I was listening to Pavement earlier we'll start there, yes we shall.

I associate teenage heartbreak with the Pavement l.p. Wowee Zowee. It happened in my first year at university, after I had turned twenty, but you know, those three sides of vinyl are connected to my first-not-first love. Grave Architecture and Serpentine Pad are for me two of the best tracks on the album which sings from track two onwards (I have mixed feelings about We Dance).

First-not-first-love will have two associations. Tim Booth and James covering Sunday Morning by Lou Reed takes me back to standing in a school corridor aged 14 whistling this and the girl I fancied asking why I was so cheerful[7]. Well, because she was talking to me, I don't know... The other association with first-not-first-love is the female name Clare[8] spelt that way. Just seeing that word will make that melody skip into my head. Do-day-dah, de-di-dah, do-day-dah, de-di-dah.

Breakups are another thing. Here it is It's The End Of The World As We Know It by REM. I know the lyrics are about earthquakes and the rest, but deep in my heart it is about losing one's partner and that feeling that even if it is the end of the world it might be okay. Eventually. After a bucket load of trouble, simply nothing to be done but get on[3].

Feedback. I love screaming guitars, tube screaming effects are the best. Fifteen minutes of feedback and e-bows, hell yes[4]. But, whenever feedback crops in thoughts and conversations it is I Feel Fine by the Beatles. No screaming, more restraint, but feedback nonetheless.

Feedback comes in loops, cycles. Jane's Addiction[5]'s Been Caught Stealing is my bicycling song. It's mostly that lyric, "it's mine, mine oh mine, and I don't have to pay for it", that gets me. The open road, cycle path, they're mine (and yours if you want).

Though I think about music when running I don't associate any music with running. Running is clouds, freedom, floating, with a beat but not a beat I can disclose.

Petanque is suspicion. Messenger bags are Justin's. Bricks sleep and don't hang in the air same way spaceship do. Starship trooper boots. It is more hygienic in bottles. Central reservations broke our gardens. 'Potato on a radiator gonna let it remain in a locket'. The mind gets dirty as it gets closer to thirty, she's flirty and thirty, about the age when women get dirty, it's dirty story about a dirty man[9].

To paraphrase one of my favourite bands (of all time) talking about their shared appreciation of "Stephen Malkmus and the magic of Pavement", I do this all the time. And if I could do it all over again I would do it all over you. And by you I mean me, and isn't that the real truth. No[6].

Notes
1- Almost. Well, depending on my mood. Just watched Great British Bake Off and thought 'and this is my shooting hand' when Sue Perkins asked a contender to show their hand.
2- The Mikado can teach the reader a lot about political cronyism (Lord High Everything-Else), ageism (that song about elbows), and the daily routines of school girls. It also demonstrates the use of demonizing language when describing the other, the unfortunates, and the poor (or was that Peter Lilley?).
3- I am not too proud to say I'm okay that I associate the Pastels with a girl I once knew called Aggi. And that sentence starts with a Belle and Sebastian lyric.
4- Beck, and not the guitarist Jeff Beck.
5- That well-known international source of addiction news.
6- One reference and lots of connections. The Simpsons, the X Files, Leonard Nimoy, Star Trek, the list goes on.
7- Have you heard the lyrics?
8- The girl in the corridor wasn't called Clare. I don't know where Clare came from, it might have been a film or book for all I can remember.
9- All of that because I was thinking about ants while watching a fly.

Summer babe (winter version)

While watching some TV live I was subjected to an advert for TLC's not-in-any-way-similar-to-bear-baiting If Katie Hopkins Ruled The World a though struck me what it would be like to be ruled by music.Governed by lyrics, our laws created in tune to melodies and backbeats.

Would the media be working themselves into a 1930s-style hysteria if the could blame it on the boogie instead? Would members of parliament agree to give themselves considerable remuneration packages if someone in the corner was singing Watching The Detectives? What would environmental laws be like if written under the umbrella of Sepultura's Biotech Is Godzilla[1]?

The decision was mine. I'll stop that line of thought.

Katie Hopkins is far from a critic. There is no ability in her to evaluate two sides of an argument, instead the reader gets a hyperactive, 'straight-talking[2]', straight-misinformation, straight-misleading. I wonder what her reaction would be to reading Slaughter House-Five? Animal Farm? Miffy At The Gallery or Dear Grandma Bunny?

Reading leads to learning, read wide enough and one's learning goes far. Don't read, or allow your learning to be filtered through an other's lenses, and one's learning will be exposed for the short-terminalism it represents.

At the moment I think I would prefer to be governed by the music of Pavement and the lyrics (with harmonies) of the Beach Boys. Though I'm always going to be a Furry Friend at heart[3].

Note
1- This song has a strong argument for technological equality.
2- Go on, explain that to me.
3- .I'm loose and committing a crime.

'I am Akira to your Tetsuo'

'I am Akira to your Tetsuo' - Quote from a poet at Wickerman Festival 2015

Unfortunately there is a piece of music that I have heard that you will never hear. It's just not possible, you needed to be there. You needed to be at Wickerman.

It happened like this. You stand by the main stage, with your back to the dance tent and open air dj booth. To your left, there's three noisy stages, two for up-and-coming acts and a third stage for the nearlies and the just-unders and so on. 

Main stage kicks off, a melody of a singer from 'way back when', with the two dance areas providing a Korg backbeat. Then those three stages join in, guitars full and low with a distortion that might have emerged from the depths of the most deepest and active volcano. 

It shouldn't work. They're not keeping the same tempo, not even in the same key. Main stage is singing about addiction, those guitars sound like they are the basis of several of the unhealthiest addictions yet to be discovered. And yet...

This is Wickerman Festival as I found it. There were good sounds from the stages and performers but part of the beauty of this festival is the mixture. A poem about pies accompanied guitar, a comedian buying viagra for his dad, a band from Sunderland with a l.p. currently at one million and umpteenth in the album chart. And at the end of it all a giant wickerman goes up in flames.

So, who did I see? Well, does it matter, there was so much on. I could have spent endless time in the performance tent alone, the Phoenix, Solus, and Scooter tents had such varied acts, and the main stage had massive crowd pleasers.

At the end of it though it comes down to that poet, a stand in for someone who couldn't make it, talking about generations and revolutions, tucking in a reference to Akira.

In need

Top five lists of the ten most amazing 1001 books about the 100 websites which reveal to you the secret fifty activities you must do with everyone you know before they turn thirty. Only one number one place though picture number seven will amaze you with how unexpected it features a human doing something human. 'The sixth richest nation bar none.'

I've been thinking about hierarchies recently, and their deficiencies[1]. At university I was introduced to Maslow's hierarchy of needs, which at first seemed quite succinct to me then grew more contradictory. It presents a basic interpretation of the possible needs of a generalised populace. Which is where is starts to fall apart, a pyramid build on the marshland of generalisations.

Hierarchies rely on placing one item above or below the relative merits of another item. However, individual taste dictates that for some both items are less acceptable than a third item[3]. For each individual their own hierarchy.

As a cyclist I am aware that for some motorised vehicle drivers I have a lower position on the road[2]. Living outside the city centre of Leeds I am aware how local government money is used to varying degrees, one pavement beautifully cared for while another is overgrown and blocks access.

There isn't a hierarchy to music. I guarantee that what makes me shudder with shivers of sonic sensual satisfaction is different to what does it for you. And it doesn't matter. No guilty pleasures.

No. Guilty. Pleasures.

Just pleasures. That beat that unwinds you, yeah, that's great. That melody that sneaks through the defenses and leaves you crying with joy, yep, I have a few of those too, one by Sepultura too. That lyric, the juxtaposition of the marginally sublime with outright heartfulness, yeah, it happens to me.

The thing is, hierarchies are useless. In football one team could win the league by scoring one goal in each game. At the bottom of the league the relegated team might have had twenty five-all draws. Which games would a neutral spectator prefer to see?

And yet hierarchies are placed upon us all the time. On the same day as you read this someone would have mentioned the number one local retail destination near you. A local newspaper will tell you what people in your town are concerned about, regardless of whether you are concerned about those issues. The local government will make a decision based on one private hierarchy while publicly blaming another.

In Leeds a new retail destination is being built, with accommodation for a John Lewis department store. John Lewis does a lot for the communities it serves. Sadly, not two hundred metres from the site of this new destination is the former base of self medication support service Multiple Choice. My understanding is the closure of the service was down to funding cuts, but surely supporting those who need support the most would be placed higher on a list than remuneration, say?

People are individuals. Sure, there are patterns and from those one could work out where supporting and funding would be best placed.

But in individual taste there is no right or wrong. I like Jason Donovan, I've seen him live. I dislike the sound of the Libertines because it reminds me of the Cure. Thing is, if you thought Jason Donovan wasn't up too much but the Libertines sound and lyrics unlocked the deepest pleasure senses you have, we'd get along fine. Much better than the jerk who thought we both should be listening to the next big thing before they got big and sold out.

Notes
1- Except for the hierarchy I created of fictional detectives, though I concede that Piorot is also better than Batman.
2- On the day of writing I was buzzed by a much larger vehicle. Considering the amount of damage I could cause to another vehicle should I collide with it, the cyclist in a city centre should be first and centre, not on the side.
3- A fourth comes along with a set of nontransitive dice and suggests a game.

Don't talk, put your head on my shoulder

This month I started a course at work. The induction required me to bring along an item that was "me".

I had about four months to consider this, and it wasn't until early August I actually decided on something. Some things were good items but not completely me: my trusty guitar (typically me, it's too awkward); running shoes (too recently me).

Eventually I picked my best of the Beach Boys lp (see image). I will have to talk about it, what follows are some of the things I might mention:

• I have been listening to the Beach Boys since I was about six. I had two cassette tapes of Best Of volumes 1 and 2.
• At primary school I was told that I shouldn't listen to 'old stuff' like the Beach Boys but popular current pop music. This warning didn't stop me.
• Music has been a part of my life from a very early age. At most times of the day I will be thinking of a song lyric (my favourite lyric is included on one of tattoos) or melody. Most likely having said this either On The Radio or Fidelity by Regina Spektor have popped into my head.
• When I proposed to my wife I used a series of song lyrics as my speech. For our wedding party my two brothers and I performed Beach Boys, Buddy Holly and Super Furry Animals covers under the name Super Furry Beach Buddies. They are three most favourite acts.
• I collect vinyl. My original collect was destroyed in a flood in 2012, and the first replacement record was yellow vinyl issue of Yellow Submarine by the Beatles. Probably my favourite Beatles song is It's Only A Northern Song, written as a throw away song by George Harrison. The hardest records to replace seem to be lo-fi Glasgow band Urusei Yatsura.
• I write a blog about finding book and record shops. I started it earlier in 2014 after spending a year experimenting with ideas.
• I use music a lot when I run. I don't tend to listen to music but keep songs in my head. Pace wise, Autobahn by Kraftwek is a 9 minute mile, Gold Mother by James is 8 minutes 30 second mile, Peggy Sue by Buddy Holly is 8 minute mile, and No good For Me by Prodigy is a 7 minute 30 second mile pace. I haven't worked out either 7 minute mile pace or quicker.
• When I think I can get away with it I will sing out aloud.

Postscript. Two weeks later and I still don't quite remember what I said.