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...

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.

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.

Covered but not everything covered/"Call Me Doctor, Doctor Sleeves"

I had an anxiety dream on Saturday night. Familiar ordinary items had been rearranged to make an extraordinary version of my office space. Worse still, the total work space was empty except for my still-to-be-packed belongings and files. All the signs in the office had been converted to drawings in blue pen ink. The new signs were mostly skull and cross bones, thin blue lined skull and cross bones 'as if from a secret secretary school' as my dream brain narrator put it.

Anxiety dreams are not unusual, and moving office is likely to contribute toward me having them. However, I moved on Friday, I had know about the move proper for a year and a half, improperly for nearly four years. I had not had a single dream about it in all that time and all my packing was complete.

I mention this because the move gave my colleagues and I a morning away from our work[1], which was spent eating donuts and buying records.

The first place I visited was Relic Records. Here over two levels are CDs, DVDs, and vinyl, lots and lots of vinyl. On previous visits I've been lucky to find what I was looking for, not so this time. 

Relic Records sometimes frustrates me, it sells a lot of good music, stuff that I like and listen to and will buy eventually, but when I'm in the mood for something out of the ordinary I don't see to find it here.

So, what was my mood on Friday morning? Well, brothers, sisters, have you heard it on the news? You know, "about this fascist groove thang, evil men with racist views, spreading all across the land". That's right, I now have a twelve inch version of Heaven 17's (We Don't Need This) Fascist Groove Thang purchased from Wall of Sound underneath Crash Records.

I learnt about Brownian Motion from watching Hitch Hikers' Guide to the Galaxy, I couldn't tell you the exact theory but it's enough to give me an understanding. And so it is the same I learnt about politics, equality and society through music. Ideas expressed in songs I listened to as a teenager formed my outlook on life. For example, Government Walls by James opened my eyes to the need for transparency in oversight of secret services. Likewise, Sepultura's Biotech Is Godzilla gave me the desire for technology to be for all and not the few. There's many more songs where I could link an idea to a lyric. 

Music alone will not change ideas but it is a good starting point. A little like conditional pacifism, who is going to listen to Heaven 17 and say "that is a good song, I'm now going to go out and spread racism and fascism"?[2]

Herbert Read planted[3] an idea in my head that music was unique among creative endeavours in that it could convey emotion in a more concise fashion. What hope does a portrait have against a minor scale in portraying sadness? Urusei Yatsura planted the idea that music was a noise to be joyfully created, and their records came out on Ché Records.

Fuxa also had records released on Ché. In the mid-to-late 1990s I had seen little bits about they, heard a little on the radio, but hadn't gone as far as buying any of their stuff. In my head I retained a memory of sound, and when I found a double disc in Wall of Sound I asked for a listen. Yep, that's the noise I heard, that's the record I will buy.

I do not know much about Fuxa and have purposefully not searched the internet to do research prior to writing. There is something of a discovery in buying music physically, flicking through discs, rather than going through a long list as part of an online retailer's portal. There is nothing wrong with online, or download only, or storing music digitally to listen to on a mobile phone or Playstation 3[4], just purchasing for me is best physical. 

And physically I was attracted to the Fuxa, the cover is alluring, the sleeve notes hinting at something else. Data Bass? You better, Fuxa, or else.

This had been a much more enjoyable experience for me. Not bound by a collection of the 'canon of rock' (for want of a better description) I was able to find alternatives and potential, the undertone and counter melody offering a counterpoint to the twelve bar blues. 

On to Jumbo Records. Prior to starting my book on Krautrock[5] I probably knew three or four, six at the limit, definite bands that were of that era. I have Can, Kraftwerk and Tangerine Dream records but did not know anything about how these and others were interconnected. 

Neu! were a band I knew by sight but not anything about. My shopping trip today was expressly to find Neu! in some form, even a CD would do. Future Days sets out a description of a band that I very much liked, their approach to music and to motorik very appealing. Payday was two days ago, I had a mission and Jumbo would be my supplier. I now have a lovely reissue of Neu! by Neu!, and the knowledge that they and Harmonia were being rereleased over the coming year. 

The music of Can and fellow German bands of the 1960s and 1970s was in part born out of a reactionary response to "the Americanisation of German popular music, particularly the blues derivations so popular in Europe" (Future Days, p112)[6]. As much as I like early Pink Floyd, beyond the lyrical content where is the innovation? The drum beat, guitar scale? How about the production, the panning left-to-right and back at speed on Piper At The Gates Of Dawn. It is a fabulous record but it is just the sum of the musicians' experience.

I almost added "and limitation" to that last sentence but there is no limitation in music. If there was a finite number of combinations of beats and notes we would reach it quickly. It is improbable that all music will ever be known, an infinite improbability so to speak. There was a scientist who successfully reasoned that infinite improbabilities could be worked out with a really strong cup of tea. And thus I learnt about Brownian Motion[7].

Relic Records, New Briggate, Leeds
Wall of Sound, Headrow, Leeds
Crash Records, Headrow, Leeds
Jumbo Records, St John's Centre, Leeds

Notes
Title - Yep, aiming for the 1970s, prog-rock, dual-title title angle.
1- To paraphrase Ysabell in Mort by Terry Pratchett, 'how about this? Let's pretend I've accurately summarised the academic year and the appropriate time for resource relocation. See? It saves a lot of effort'.
2 - It's been a month since I read a book on Ethnomusicology, and I have about fifty pages to go to finish Future Days, but I find myself thoroughly increasingly fascinated by the interrelation between communities, the culture they create, and their politics.
3 - In the introduction to The Meaning of Art (1931).
4 - Today, for the first time ever, I listened to the Divine Comedy while gazing on the planet Earth. The visuals were rather engaging when Neil Hannon sings "I'm the darkness in the light" as Antarctica rotates in to view.
5 - Future Days: Krautrock and the Building of Modern Germany by David Stubbs (Faber & Faber, 2014) contains many useful passages about Germany and music in the 1960s and 1970s, but the one I feel the most need to impart when talking about Krautrock is that the word is a misnomer. Aside from the horrible stereotyping of all German music under one umbrella, it means "herbrock".
6 - I am going to attempt to get a doctorate by writing and publishing more than 100,000 words, backed up by my own research. I have peer review, in the form of you, dear Reader, so that title is mine, you might as well start calling me Doctor Sleeves.
7 - Social media can appear a little Brownian Motion, the way ideas spread and collide as interconnected groups of people talk. I didn't know about recent changes at XFM or the NME except for social media. That is not to say the news was not important just that it it didn't crop up in the normal channels I check news for. I learnt about the 'first free edition' of the NME through Crash Records's Twitter feed as they had been left off the NME's list of distribution points.

The Bohemian Community of Kirkstall

There is an island[1] where all the lost ideas make their way to. They have excellent navigational skills, lost ideas, as well as fantastic trial hiding techniques. Once a lost idea is sufficiently far enough away it will not come back easily.

I tracked my idea to Bohemia. Victoria Cohen Mitchell presented a BBC series[2] on Bohemians through the ages, seemingly concluding that there is no easy definition of what a Bohemian is. Essentially it came down with disagreeing with the political elite, which can be a little vague. I mean, the speeding motorist on the A65 is in disagreement with a political elite.

What struck me about the programme was the number of commentators willing to attach their definition on other people, most of which are no longer able to give a reply. The trouble with attaching one's own definition on others is that one will be invariably wrong.

Wrong choice of word. Wrong definition. Wrong recipient.

At this point the lost idea seems to have wanted to take in Herbert Read, Barthes, Descartes, and Derrida. Looking at this list it is also very likely to have included a paragraph or two outlining why Oxford commas matter (with a big 'fuck you, not fuck you' to Vampire Weekend as I'm rather fond of them).

These ideas are in my head, and no doubt will come out in due course. But it is worth noting that life got in the way. Life, that thing John[3] Lennon warned us all about, the disruptor of plans. 

The main thing that disrupted my thought process was Kirkstall Festival. I knew it was coming, to be fair, get out a calendar and we can pretty much predict when it will take place every year (second Saturday of July), but this year preparations for the Festival also included preparations for the stall I would help run (for Kirkstall in Bloom). Along with work being massively annoyingly troublesome[4], ideas came and went like pooh sticks in a rapidly flowing river, fifty metres away and taken by beavers before I can do anything with them.

Kirkstall Festival took my creative energy, refocused it and helped me contribute to a pretty successful event. What does it matter if my writing is a month delayed, approximately 28,000 people came and enjoyed what was on offer[6]. As one person said, imagine everything you could find in West Yorkshire and you're likely to find it at Kirkstall Festive[5]. 

Okay, maybe an exaggeration but there's some truth in it. There is musical acts, performance, artists, local and national organisations, a parade, dance, sports, and a dog show. Yep, dog show. I managed two walks around the site, I saw folk, Morris dancers, blues, alt-pop, and heavy metal.

Which brings up the reference to John Dunne. There is a pressure from local and national government, media commentators and soundbite technicians, to view communities as islands. By doing so one can separate and divide. Communities have it within themselves to say, no, we're the sum of the parts, we can do better than you.

Note
1- Not an island, thanks, John Donne.
2- BBC reform is such a lovely, right-wing idiots idea of progress they ignore the fact it is so reactionary it almost revolts itself. Listen to the politician say in the same sentence, 'I love what the BBC do with X, but Y is unnecessary'. Sorry, but Y is necessary to someone else, and they didn't vote for you, you're not speaking for them because of a complete dysfunction between political reality and electoral success.
3- How many Johns can I fit into this, I wonder?
4- Though not too troublesome. We're moving office in September, and the desk plan correctly gives me the right position in the new office. My desk is number one.
5- Fun fact, the current chair of Kirkstall Festival is called John. 
6- I must say, Kirkstall Festival was also an elaborate birthday celebration for someone. She was most happy, even if she didn't recognise every single attendee.

Saga, saga

I wonder if there is a word that could describe one's attachments emotionally to a cultural artifact? Would it be a single word that conveyed all those human connotations and contradictions? Or maybe a phrase would be better, 'adding the total of one's life to the meaning of x'?

I have quite a few, some I am happy to talk about (well, by the end of this post you will see I am not happy) and others that I will never share. This weekend I went to Leeds Central Library and picked up Saga volumes one, two and three. I also picked up Adventure Time volumes one and two in Burley Library but I have no emotional ties to this. I mean, it's nice and okay.

I picked up Saga for a number of reasons. Mainly because I started reading Brian K Vaughan's We Stand On Guard this week, and figured it was time to get back on with Saga, but there's other reasons. It's a good story, told well, and not easily predictable.

I have read Saga before. Somewhere it my boxes of comic book issues there are the first three issues. I remember the day I bought them, a Friday, because that evening I learnt a friend had committed suicide.

Sylvain was a friend. We had known each other since about 1997, shared a very similar taste in music and cultural references. There had been two breaks when we stopped talking, both came to an end when Sylvain contacted me.

Having read the first volume of Saga I can see how the team set up the situation and the characters. The universe it is contained in is good, not a simple linear, good v bad universe, their universe is full of grey where people can disappear.

The second time Sylvain got back in contact was pretty amazing. The first time was awesome for me, but the second time I had worried too much time had passed. I had moved three times, out and back into and then out of London. In the back of my head there was the lost cord I couldn't connect. Sylvain was more intelligent than me.

Saga is about cultural differences. It starts with birth and violence, love and misunderstanding, and from there it just goes on. Why wouldn't you want your child to see the universe?

One morning before work Sylvain sent me a message on Facebook. We chatted and I said I needed to get to work, I was still in my probationary period. I said we'd talk again, soon.

Now, my memory is sketchy regarding the time line and I don't want to investigate it further. It's my memory, you see, and unlike Hazel in Saga I am an unreliable witness by choice.

The next message I had from Sylvain wasn't from Sylvain. It was from his partner informing me of what had happened. I didn't want to press her but from what I understood Sylvain had been very resolute in his determination. We shared a few words about Sylvain and that was that. I offered if she ever needed to talk I was a message away.

I miss Sylvain. There are a lot of things in life one can't explain or resolve, and I cannot resolve a lot of things about Sylvain without Sylvain's help. So, instead, aside from Saga, I shall share one of the other things that remind me of that dear dead Frenchman: "Wanna grow up to be, be a debaser, debaser."

Saga #1, #2, #3, Brain K Vaughan, Fiona Staples,
Leeds Central Library, Leeds

Shop like in the movies

I am a bit of a Brian Wilson fan. Mainly down to the Beach Boys, though I've kept an ear out for anything he's done. Like No Pier Pressure, released this year. No Pier Pressure is pretty amazing for me. There's some nice songs on there, including the rather hypnotic The Right Time. Al Jardine and David Marks feature, as does She & Him. I'd suggest you give it a listen, but then I would, wouldn't I.

I bought it at Jumbo Records. I also got a lovely Ghostbox 7inch.

And...

While I was paying up and chatting with the very friendly staff (he is so knowledgeable and agreeable, I've not asked his name) [1], a record came on the shop hi-fi. This is where the exchange becomes a little High Fidelity.

The record is by The Crocodiles, they're rather good. Friendly-agreeable asks whether I'd like to see the cover, yes, you might as well bring the vinyl. Three record of the day purchased.

There's a scene in High Fidelity where the main character promises to sell five copies of The Beta Band. Music is essential in record shops, the places are positively evil without it. Even if you don't like what they play, they enjoy it, and someone will listen and go, yeah, that's pretty awesome.

It's how I got into Can[2], in Selectadisc, Soho, back in the day.

Anyway, I can now cross acting out a scene from High Fidelity off my list of things to do. Also on that list is working in a pharmacist and having someone whisper 'I love you, George Bailey' in my deaf ear, working in a biker bar in L.A. when a naked muscle man comes in demanding clothes, and selling antiques to young, ginger-haired Belgians. I have been close to hitchhiking across the galaxy, but it wasn't to be.

Brian Wilson, No Pier Pressure,  Ghost Box, Study Series 09, The Crocodiles, Boys,
Jumbo Records, St Johns Centre, Leeds, West Yorkshire

Notes
1- Not an "over friendly concierge" like the Pavement lyric.
2- "Dying butterfly never dies, never dies" is the first Can lyric I heard. I was shopping with my brother and future sister-in-law.

Where did I go...

A slight hiatus recently, though have still been reading and listening. Since I last wrote I've been listening to James and Brian Eno's Wah Wah, possibly my most favourite James l.p., and read Herman Hesse's Siddhartha and The Game Of Thrones by George R R Martin.

A weekend was spent in Oxford for the Bookcrossing 2015 conference. Alongside the book swapping (there were a lot of books wild released on Sunday across Oxford). I managed to find Truck Store, purchasing the Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1 and a secondhand Never Loved Elvis by the Wonderstuff. Truck Store is nice, small and friendly, though I was a little put off by the coffee shop side of the business. Coffee drinkers aren't necessarily the best vinyl listeners, and watching boys under the age of ten run around knocking CD cases off shelves wasn't my kind of shopping experience.

What is my most desired shopping experience? Why yes, a publisher selling all the titles in a series. Oxford is home to Oxford University Press, a fact that had been unknown to me in a physical sense until walking pass the shop front. I like the Short Introductions series, and came away with some rarer (to me) titles including Ethnomusicology (like being an existentialist seems that I share some key traits of an ethnomusicologist), dinosaurs, and a signed book on the ice age. I know, signed and about the ice age.

Norwich is a fine city and is home to Fine City Sounds. While flicking through the rather lovely sized collection (and reasonably priced too) I got to listen to some interesting thoughts from another customer about Joy Division. Obscure is the word, though batdodah is also descriptive.

Obscure in a more pleasant way is searching for rare records by bands long disappeared. The Joy Division *fan* found something I wanted. Luckily he returned Urusei Yatsura's Fake Fur 7inch single on white vinyl. 'Tis a Pavement- and Sonic Youth-referencing joy.

I can remember my first ever Urusei Yatsura gig in Lincoln when they toured with Mogwai. On my record shelf there's a signed split single from the tour, and it is next to another split single from Lincoln, Agebaby and Olivia Honey.

All of that is almost twenty years ago. And yet, with that magic that music has, it's all there fresh in the memory. The absolute way Frequency Dip "came into my life and stayed there for a while" (to paraphrase Honesty Joe off the same l.p.). The way bands like Urusei Yatsura live on in collections, why it's nice finding The Fall and Diana and Marvin unexpectedly.

To bring all this up to date, while in Oxford I let something go for it to be returned to me differently. Mort by Terry Pratchett has many personal memories and experiences. I released the second copy of the paperback in Oxford (with some very life changing moments linked to it) and replaced it with a new hardback edition with silver leaf on the cover (I think it's silver leaf, could just be expensive tin foil).

One of my uncles introduced me to Discworld. I have nephews, I know my course of action.

James,Wah Wah
Jumbo Records, Leeds.
Urusei Yatsura, Fake Fur single, The Fall, This Nation's Saving Grace
Fine City Sounds, Norwich
Diana Ross and Marvin Gaye, Diana And Marvin
Vinyl Vault, Holt
Various, Guardians of the Galaxy Awesome Mixtape #1, the Wonder Stuff, Never Loved Elvis
Truck Store, Oxford
A Very Short Introduction To: Dinosaurs; Ethnomusicology; the Gothic; Ice Age; Landscape; Happiness
Oxford University Press, Oxford
Terry Pratchett, Mort, Simon Sylvester, The Visitors
Waterstones, Leeds

Postscript. You should read The Visitors, it was recommended to me by a friend who also agreed the Brass Fastening was an MC from Detroit in the 1880s. Seriously though, read The Visitors.

Minimum

I remember comic books I read in the 1980s. I remember Beanos and others, a really odd few months of reading GI Joe, and sequential art in the form of Rupert the Bear and other newspaper strips. I vaguely remember reading an odd issue of 2000ad.

I recall with a strong feeling when I started reading comic books properly. I happened upon some Simpsons comics and the rest is history.

Between 1996 and about 2004 I read quite a bit of Simpsons but fell out of love with it. My best ever Simpsons related  experience was reading them in a terrible flatshare in east London with my best friend in 1997 fighting away the feeling that London and university were not for me.

Today I needed to make up a minimum amount to pay by card. There was nothing appealing in the big two, so I feel on a old-friend and purchased Simpsons Comics #216. It's not 1997 good but for once in a few years I did think about reading it again.

Ok Comics, Thornton's Arcade, Leeds

It is hard to see from the inside

I'm currently reading Richard E Feist's A Darkness at Sethanon. The whole Riftwar trilogy ends with this book, and I've bought all three from secondhand bookshops. About a year ago I set out to read something other than A Dance of Dragons so had a couple of names in mind, Feist, Jordan, Giddings, Hobb, all sourced off the internet with no real indicator of whether I would like them or not. The Magician was the first book I found and read, next up was Jordan and I didn't take to it, so I continued to read through the Riftwar saga.

Sometimes it is difficult finding a particular book in secondhand bookshops. I like reading in order so waiting for The Magician seemed to be a difficult task. When eventually I bought it I immediately started finding copies everywhere, including one to read at the Youth Hostel at Boggle Hole. But then that's part of the joy of discovery, sometimes it's not the thing you are looking for that you will find.

Having said I like reading in sequence I have broken another fantasy series. At the mobile library in Kirkstall I picked up Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls. This is book 13 in the Warhammer series, though I am sufficiently confident that it will not deviate too much from the formula that has seen Gotrek seek his doom and Felix chart his saga. The last book I read was book 7.

While we scanned the books at the mobile library we were told that there was some rotation of stock though the non-fiction books we returned would not stay with the library. I guess fiction is only for the outer rim, nearer the galactic centre they can deal with facts. Galaxies are notoriously difficult to see from the inside, whatever shape or form they take is beyond our current capabilities. There are patterns, a doppelganger is never good in fantasy, the quarreling strangers will be lovers at the end of the movie, yet mysteries.

Josh Reynolds, Gotrek & Felix: Road of Skulls

Mobile Library, Kirkstall Morrisons, Leeds

Postscript. Did you know that Leeds Libraries renews library cards every three years?

Not a new year revolution

It was not a new year resolution. Yes, starting in January 2015 I would go to at least one gig a month, but honestly, I wasn't thinking of that when I bought the ticket.

I was thinking about Bis and Cowtown. I've liked Bis since way back when I bought two Eps (Secret Vampires! and Starbright Boy) and while they were music I cherished I didn't get anymore records. I knew they did things but what they were who knew.

Until Powerpuff Girls, that is.

I have liked Cowtown since seeing them at Indietracks. I've been meaning to see them live since moving to Leeds but every time they were playing I was out of town.

So the opportunity to see both in the Belgrave couldn't be missed. I purchased my ticket in November from Jumbo Records, part of a birthday present to myself, I also got a Doors record and Hookworms. Holding the ticket, looking at Jumbo's big blackboard of gigs, made me think I'd like to see more acts again. When we first moved to Leeds we saw two bands a month, so a plan was hatched, following Bis and Cowtown in January I would go to at least one a month.

February looks good for music, including a band I missed at the Liverpool Psyche Fest, Spectres.

Gig tickets, The Doors, L.A. Woman, Hookworms, The Humm,
Jumbo Records, 5-6 St Johns Centre, Leeds

Yes, but what is the murderer's demographic?

Recently I've been trying to write a brief outline of my reading habits. There's a shop in Bath that offers a book recommendation service based on this and a chat in store, it will be interesting to see what they recommend for me.

While I tried to be as concise and clear as possible one thing I was very, very definite about: I like reading books in sequence. I find it very hard picking up book number two in the series, or that the book in my hand that seems really good is actually is the sequel to something the author wrote five years previously. 

It is rare for me to read something out of sequence, even when the book is a freebie (I have a review copy of Peter F Hamilton's Judas Unchained, I bought and read Pandora's Star before looking in it). The only exception seems to be when the book in question is out of print or impossible to find, like Georges Simenon's Maigret series. There's some 75 novels for Maigret alone*, even when they appear in shops it won't necessary be in sequence (I know, why can't secondhand bookshops plan to stock only the books one is looking for, right?), or the title is the revised title. Gladly, Penguin is republishing the books in (a kind of) sequence, so today I bought third in the series from Waterstones in Leeds.

I didn't check this time, there's a corner of the shop that I've never been a fan of. 'Cosy crime' as a genre-definition is truly horrible. The only true cosy crime is the orange and purple number sometimes found in certain tea shops and charity shops. 'Cosy' crime is supposed to bring together Marple and Poirot and Hamish Macbeth and Maigret, yet when one actually reads them the crimes aren't 'cosy', the motives and the reasons are plain human nature, and human nature is messy. 

My relationship with crime fiction has slowly changed, moving from the sensationalism to the exploration and speculation on human nature. My relationship with Doctor Who has changed to, from the scary, behind-the-sofa Urbankans, to a more enjoyable, not-so-scary-but-still-a-little-bit speculation on human nature (again, I wonder where all this speculation is coming from?).

Ten Little Aliens, Stephen Cole, The Late Monsieur Gallet, Georges Simenon,
Waterstone's Leeds

* There's some 400 Simenon books. Maigret is possible his most famous work (it has been translated across the world, there's even a rather nice sounding Japanese series from the 1970s, Michael Gambon played Jules Maigret in ITV's 1990s version). More information here.

Ok, Go!

Awards are funny things. In publishing there are some relatively small awards that should be shouted from the roof tops compared to some of the mainstream ones that seem to warp time to include the latest release in their longlist.

Today I popped into Ok Comics. I shop there fairly regularly, they keep me stocked up in 2000ad, and I get collections and trade paperbacks from there. Jared and Oliver are really friendly and helpful; ask for a recommendation and they will suggest something you'll be glad to have read.

Anyway, I popped in today and saw Jared being interviewed outside the shop door. He was discussing how awesomely amazingly groovy (my words) it was to be nominated to the shortlist of twelve comic book retailers in the Will Eisner Spirit of Comics Retailer Award. Ok Comics is the only European retailer in the list for the award which is like the Oscars for comic book stores (Ok Comics words).

The prize is announced on Friday night, I can't imagine what the atmosphere will be like if Ok Comics won. Probably the same as New 52 launch night with Free Comic Book Day times by ten, and then some more.

Aside from the recommendations and the events, Ok operate a free graphic novel library and one of the best loyalty schemes ever. Visit, say hello, enjoy a truly independent shopping experience in Leeds: I am willing to say that more than 80% of non-sequential art readers will find something they will enjoy reading.

The other big publishing award news this week was the release of a longlist. It seemed to include a book that seemingly has only been released this week too, so either it is very good or very heavily promoted. I won't name names.

All I will do is highlight how wonderful the Green Carnation Prize is. If you ever get the chance to listen to Simon Savidge talk about books take it: it was one of thee best book events I've ever been to.

Postscript. If by popping into Ok Comics my colourful shirt should appear in the background to any video content then the only thing I will say is this: I am fighting a war against the white shirt-wearing office workers of Leeds. In the words of Los Campesinos! it is a war I will surely lose.

We are all children of the Revolution

Another Sunday afternoon trip to a library, this time Horsforth. I’ve never really been around Horsforth, the part nearest to where I live seems disconnected to the main part near the park, so this trip is something we’ve put off.

The library is nice, a big airy space for books and information. I didn’t check, I think the building had a dedication to the Brownlee boys and their trainer. At first there didn’t seem many books though the room seems to widen towards the back, with chidren’s books almost furthest from the entrance. This is the second time I’ve actually noticed this, why are children’s books in the back and ‘romance’ nearest to the entrance? Doesn’t matter really, there’s a reading space and lots of books (again, I didn’t check though I assume there is an Artmis Fowl book or two, there had better be, children need to learn the truth about fairies and criminal masterminds, read early and read often).

I came away with Scott Westerfeld’s Behemoth and Peter F Hamilton’s Great North Road. Behemoth because when I was reading the first book in the series, Leviathan, Westerfeld pulled a fantastic trick on me, in the last few chapters I went from not caring what happened to the two characters to I must know the very end or I will not sleep. Westerfeld’s books are steampunk and mostly young adult, though if genre really matters to you there is also revolutionary politics and gender equality. The point I am making is that it is a good read regardless of being steampunk, young adult, or anything else.

I picked up Great North Road because I got excited about seeing it in the library.

Peter F Hamilton, Great North Road, Scott Westerfeld, Behemouth,
Horsforth Library

Where a startling discovery is made and the blogger offers advice

I work for Leeds Metropolitan University (soon to become Leeds Beckett University in September 2014), and as a member of staff I have access to the libraries and materials therein. In two and a half years I've not had a proper look around the library in the Headingley Campus. Even though I was there today I still didn't manage it.

On the way back home I did pop into Headingley Library. This time there's school children seemingly everywhere, though not in young adult (where I found the first part of the Hunger Games) or science fiction (where I picked up Johannes Cabal and the Fear Institute). I only popped in on the suspicion that Johannes Cabal was in.

The Johannes Cabal series is a great series of books. The central character, the necromancer of some little infamy, is rather likeable in a terrible way (if he were to meet me I am sure he'd probably want to do away with me, quickly, for my own good, obviously) and the books are wonderful constructs. Certainly, stop what you are doing at the end of this sentence and read the first book, Johannes Cabal the Necromaner; to paraphrase Ford Prefect, your brain will thank you for it.

The thing is the Johannes Cabal need to be read in sequence. Book two relies on knowledge of book one, book three a combination of both; the forthcoming fourth book will continue this pattern. The fourth book is intriguingly titled The Brothers Cabal, Johannes's brother not making an appearance since the first book.

When I first picked up The Fear Institute I was drawn to the content's page references to the Cthulhu Mythos (sometimes a book just needs tentacles and I'd give it a go). Once home I realised it was book three, so on an off chance I asked the author Jonathan L Howard via Twitter if it was best to start with book one. Yes, for the reasons above.

This is another reason why libraries are good. You can try so many things out, explore landscapes that might be previously unknowable, and if it's not to taste, three weeks later the book is returned.

High street, bloody high street (or, He came from Strictly Commercial)

There is something a little odd about a traffic system where a left turn is indicated by a small book-shaped sign on the right side of the road. And then, it is curious a café blames poor service on a lunchtime rush. Cafés, in a town centre, on a popular day out, busy? No, you don't say.

Those two things aside, Wakefield is pretty awesome. You've never been? Mm, why, if you don't mind me asking? You see, I rather like visiting the Hepworth, you like sculpture and photography. Yes, I thought so. So, visit the Hepworth, visit Wakefield.

What I like about Wakefield is Rhubarb Bomb and the Long Division music festival. The town is good for a wander, with some nice architectural and historical highlights, and there's plenty of books. And now there is a new record shop, Wah Wah Records.

For a few weeks and months there's been postings online, Wah Wah is coming (think Gabbo in the Simpsons, just less about puppets and definitely about records). With a visit from my in-laws planned I took the opportunity to suggest visiting Wakefield, for the Hepworth, of course, and did you know a record shop has opened there recently?

Before we visit Wah Wah we have lunch in the unnameable afore mentioned café and visit the Cathedral*. The central chamber is gorgeous, I am sure I've read about concerts held in there, possibly a great place for haunting music (that said, Young Knives singing "I was punching your father while you screamed at your mum" might also work).

You have probably guessed that I can be a little shaky with directions at times, so I find Brook Street from the local tourist information office. It is not far, though the effect could be a million miles distance. A proper record shop, lp covers beckoning us in off the street, Hookworms on the shop's hi-fi (I checked twice, the second time on Twitter%) which Alan (I assume, I didn't ask) was happy to swap to Black Sabbath when I wanted to check the sound.

Some record sellers are happy to apply a premium for 'known' artists, such as Black Sabbath or Frank Zappa, though I am glad Wah Wah don't. Music is about discovery, who discovers something if a secondhand copy with a damaged cover costs £20? Stock is added all the time, both new and old, so I am looking forward to my next visit.

Abba, The Visitors, Black Sabbath, Greatest Hits, Police, Ghost in the Machine, T'Pau, Bridge of Spies, Frank Zappa, Just Another Band From L.A. and Jazz From Hell (all lps), Wolfmother, Woman (7inch single, picture disc)
Wah Wah Records, Brook Street, Wakefield, West Yorkshire

*Opposite the Cathedral is a cream coloured Waterstone's, why it should be allowed out of the corporate colours I do not know but it is a welcome sight.

%Why not follow me on Twitter, I take shop recommendations and happily talk musical and literary pleasures.

DC comics and chocolate milkshake, one of these things is available at OK Comics

Would it surprise you that one of my first experiences of coming to Leeds was finding OK Comics? My wife was being interviewed so I had wandered and found Briggate, then Thornton's Arcade, them OK Comics. I didn't go in as I needed to head back to Millennium Square, but it was there, a little corner of independent comic book shopness in Leeds.

Since 1996 I have had a serious interest in comic books, and this was encouraged by Gosh! in London and Page 45 in Nottingham. Good shops are essential for comic book readers, and while those two are lovely, OK Comics is really good, the staff friendly and knowledgeable, fellow customers nice, and the whole atmosphere is welcoming. Comic book shops are not a mystery or forbidden; they are another way of buying different narratives.

This blog is about book and record buying so I will save you of my random thoughts about Lovecraftian references in 2000ad*, what I bought today was 47 Ronin. It is not a movie tie-in (I asked almost as soon as I saw it too), it is in fact drawn by Stan Sakai. Stan is awesome, Usagi Yojimbo is one of my favourite characters, and his art is full of emotion and displays of character. I waited about a month just to buy this one book and each page is worth it. The story is of Japan's "enduring national legend", an epic tale of loyalty and revenge.

Back to talking about narrative delivery, have you ever read The Unfortunates by BS Johnson.

47 Ronin by Mike Richardson and Stan Sakai (book)
OK Comics, Thornton's Arcade, Leeds

* And not to mention the almost weekly wonder of this week will be the week we say goodbye to Joe.

Postscript. Saturday 3 May 2014 is Comic Store Day, and aside from lovely stuff happening in OK Comics, next door is the equally lovely Hepworth Deli is worth a coffee and cake filled visit.

The Touring Guide To Headingley Library

It was a pleasure to visit libraries. It was a special pleasure to step through the door and find books, local information, book groups, information technology, children's reading area. Headingley Library is a good place to visit.

This was supposed to be a quick visit, drop off two books that were finished and near their return dates. Still, a little look around wouldn't harm. Thirty minutes later, one near collision with a fellow library user (his fault, I was looking in horror as he walked backwards from science fiction) and a librarian asking my wife if she writes books herself later, and I have two new books borrowed. One a sci-fi novel based in the Warhammer 40K universe, Deathwatch by Steve Parker (kind of like who watches the detectives, the detectives being aliens, sorry, xenos). The other a travel guide.

Libraries are important. Libraries are not just about books* and Headingley Library demonstrates this in abundance. There is a children's area where books are read out aloud, and the aforementioned information technology. Headingley also has a travel section, and among the far-flung parts of the world I found The Country Living's Travel Guide to the North East. This book is not perfect, it doesn't seem to do cafés and was published in 2010, but like most travel guides it is useful. Over Easter we will be wandering around Hadrian's Wall, and there's a few points of interest.

That said, I do not think I am a typical reader of Country Living. Try as I might I can't find an entry for Durham's People's Bookshop in the guide. A secondhand bookshop promising to fill the gaps left behind in the headlong rush for bestsellers. I found them on the internet and can't wait to visit.

*Anyone who argues libraries are only 'about books' has, in my view, not stepped in a library for quite some time. Either that or they have an ideological reason for not acknowledging the community and civic roles libraries play, or the personal need for them. If someone tells you libraries are useless and expensive wastes of money ask them about the last time they made personal use of a naval warship or air force bomber.

Postscript. It is a pleasure to reread Ray Bradbury's Fahrenheit 451. If I were to travel America reciting a book I would attempt to memorise Richard Brautigan's Sombrero Fallout.

Second Postscript. Rereading through my draft of this post made me remember something that happened near the Kirkstall mobile library in Spring 2013. While checking out our books some university-age men walked passed the entrance they shouted "libraries are gay". These were not children, grown adults whose education has at some point relied on a library. So, next time someone tells you that, say they are wrong both about libraries and for using sexuality as a derogatory term.

Never mind the drokk, here's Record Store Day 2014

Next Saturday will be Record Store Day 2014, the annual day of celebration of independent record shops across the country. A good day will be had by all, and if one would like I would certainly suggest going along to your local to see what's happening. I don't know for sure though I understand Leeds's Jumbo Records will be open from 8.30am on the day and Crash Records has tote bags. All shops involved will have special limited editions releases.

I will miss Record Store Day. I do think it is a good idea to engage people and show them the worth of local shops, particularly record shops. I think on Saturday 19 April 2014 there will be new coverts to the joys of independent shops, though rather on the day this relationship will be cemented on the next visit.

I have two cherished RSD purchases, neither purchased on the day. Last year, November 2013, I purchased a copy of Pink Floyd's See Emily Play as a pre-birthday present. Before that I bought a CD copy of Drokk. These will be mine forever, played with the memory of joy of discovery in Jumbo Records; I never expected to find them, they were just there with a familiar, 'hello James'.

Who wouldn't want to cherish their RSD purchases? Oh, well, there will be some who arrive early, mingle with the crowds while calculating the best return of investment on each purchase, eBay accounts already primed. Obviously, for these people RSD is about turning a purchase of roughly £10 into a listing of £50, £80, or £120. Ultimately money will be going into local record shops, and some people will not be able to attend, though part of me secretly wishes that RSD purchases on eBay were 'at face value' like concert tickets.

As for me, I'll let you know what my 2014 purchase is when I buy it.

I Had To Start It Somewhere So I Started There

Charity books shops survive on donations of books, so armed with plastic bags of my wife's recently read books we head to Headingley, Leeds. Two bags equalling roughly twenty-odd books shared between St Martins Hospice and the British Heart Foundation.

Good deed done, a suggestion is made, 'I might have a look next door', next door being a RSPCA branch. I like this one, it has clothes, books, CDs and DVDs, and random stuff, as well as some vinyl. So, while my wife scans through the books (and finally picking Eric Newby's Something Wholesale), I have a look at the records. Some of them are not very well cared for, the same copy of Hunky Dory by David Bowie is still here since the last time I visited, and then there is Madonna.

She stood out, an instantly and very noticeable woman in a roomful of musical talent, showing off her early singles. Hey, James, do you want to have a good time? I have never owned The Immaculate Collection before but know the songs off the radio, they are mostly familiar, and £3 for a double LP seems a good purchase. The sleeves are good, the cover looks nice aside from the little price tag (which hours later is easily removed) and I am happy with my buy.

In the shop I also noticed Uriah Heap, Jesus Jones, Blondie and Queen's News of the World. I will be back, and probably in a few weeks' time.

Post Script. The Immaculate Collection is not the first vinyl I got this April, before the trip to Headingley I picked up my copy of The Understudies Let Desire Guide Your Hand from the Post Office sorting office. I pre-ordered it in March as one of the limited available from Fire Station Records. I've been a fan since seeing them at the Indietracks festival.

Madonna, The Immaculate Collection (double LP)
RSPCA, Arndale Centre, Headingley, Leeds