Ah, the power of blogging, thanks to reader and long time internet chum Harry for providing me with a copy of "Penda's Fen" after I posted about Alan Clarke the other day.

I'm hoping to watch it tonight - for the first time since 1974...

I love this old photograph sent to me by my old chum Sean Dower - it shows (from left to right) three flatmates in East Finchley, North London in 1986* (I'd only been in London a year) - Paul Lay, Me, Sean Dower...



And the album were proudly displaying to the camera? - It's that 80s student mainstay The Smiths - The Queen Is Dead Krzysztof Penderecki's Threnody To The Victims of Hiroshima. Cool kids huh?

Actually I remember this period fondly as we three shared our enthusiasm for all kinds of music, and the Baronsmere Road record player was just as likely to resonate to the vibrations of Hank Williams, Elvis Presley, Prince and indeed the aforementioned Smiths, as it was to experimental Polish composers.

Thanks a million to Sean for the photo as I have very few from this period in my life...

*I'm guessing the year and location, but it would be about right

Look! A picture of me morris dancing and smiling. Taken outside the Hare and Billet in Blackheath on Boxing Day by obsessive_katy (Thanks!).

We're doing the "Moo Dance"...

I didn't have a television in 1989 and so was only dimly aware of this Alan Clarke film, "Elephant"-

...which I've just watched after reading about it whilst trying to research Clarke's film "Penda's Fen".

It's devastating - a series of steadycam shots of people in Northern Ireland shooting other people - and that's it, it really is as minimal as that. The fact it shares its title with Gus Van Sant's masterpiece "Elephant" is no coincidence, Van Sant has acknowledged the influence. Until now I'd assumed that the the long walking tracking shots in Van Sant's film had come from Bela Tarr (Its dedicatee) but it seems there was another source.

Did anybody see this when it was on telly? It must have made a hell of an impact.

...it says here.

"Legendary jazz bassist Charles Mingus once told a tale of how, back in the early ‘50s, some downtrodden lanky white dude chanced upon the club Mingus was playing, blagged his way on stage, then commandeered the double bass, from which said untutored stranger proceeded to extract sounds and FX the likes of which Mingus claimed never to have heard again. No one knows to this day who the dude was. My story is less mysterious but sadder. In 1979, a smart, cool-looking guy called Richard Sanderson came backstage after a Middlesborough show and gave me a bedroom recording of his quartet Drop. In his manner, style and quiet confidence, Richard was the Peter Hammill of Post-Punk; anguished, lean and nobly Norman. I loved every song on the tape and played it to Bill Drummond and Dave Balfe, who rejected it outright for being too much like ‘The Teardrops and the Fall’. I was aghast at their not recognising the sheer confidence and succinctness of Drop’s songs, but this was in mid-79, when many bands featured that ‘sound’. Anyway, I visited Richard and he gave me another bedroom tape, on which there were yet more new songs, and all great. But I was by that time experiencing problems of my own, success mainly, but also because I was absolutely caned on acid most of the time, and finding it hard even to keep my own shit together. So by the time I’d found time to hook up with Richard again … he’d become Edwin Collins! Unlucky. Unfortunately, the spirit of the artists of those Punk and Post-Punk times was way ahead of the technology and its technicians, so Drop’s classic set was never even captured in a studio. Oh, the fucking absolute tragedy!"

Julian Cope there.

I think I could quite enjoy being the Buddy Bolden (or perhaps more appropriately "The Worst") of post-punk.

I'll write a longer post about this, and what went wrong my music in the early 80s (I did recover!) when I have time. Of course the tape Julian refers to is available to anyone that wants it here

It's Christmas, a time of huge self indulgence and giving gifts. So here is a gift of me being self-indulgent. There's a fair amount of my instrumental music around, but much less of my songs, so here is a free compilation album of 18 of my songs recorded at various locations with various bits of equipment, running from a recording of Drop at my parent's house in 1978 to a laptop and voice recording made by Clive Pearman as a prelude to the recent "Three Ings" release this year (it didn't make the final cut).



1. Hollow Call
2. French Windows
3. Move Me
4. New Direction
5. Just The Same (All The Days)
6. I Guess I'm Sentimental
7. Kissing Money
8. One Look
9. Incendiary
10.Slamdown
11.Nothing Comes of Nothing
12.Dealing In Absolutes
13.Cool Location
14.My Blue Ship
15.Your Precious Hoard
16.Half Empty
17.Babes In the Wood
18.Backyard Ways

All separate MP3 tracks, alternatively you can get the whole album in a zip file by right clicking the icon below and saving to your hard drive-




Track details -

1. "Hollow Call" Drop (1978) recorded in my parent's living room, Newlands Road, Middlesbrough.
RS- vocal
Neil Jones - keyboard
Chris Oberon - bass
Mark Spybey - drums
Mark Sanderson - percussion

2. "French Windows"
3. "Move Me"
4. "New Direction" Drop (1979) recording location as above
RS- vocal/guitar
Neil Jones - keyboards
Chris Oberon - bass
Andy Kiss - drums

5. "Just The Same (all the days)" by It Will Turn Into A Head (1981) recording location as above
RS - vari-speed prepared cassette recorder, piano, unplugged electric guitar, vocal

6. "I Guess I'm Sentimental" by Oceans 11 (1981) recorded in my bedroom, Newlands Road, Middlesbrough.
RS- acoustic guitar, vocal
Karen Smith - vocal
Tanya Smith - vocal
Peter Ord - Piano
Paul Brazill - Bass

7. "Kissing Money" by The Euphoria Case (1983) portastudio recording, Newlands Road, Middlesbrough
RS- vocal, casio, guitar

8. "One Look" by The Euphoria Case (1983) recorded at Don Cox's House, Linthorpe, Middlesbrough
RS- vocal, yamaha mini-keyboard

9. "Incendiary" by The Euphoria Case (1983) recorded by Steve Graham at his house, Eston, for the Middlesbrough Musicians' Collective tape "Aims and Objectives Vol 1"
RS- vocal, drum machine, synthesizer, casio

10. "Slamdown" by The Euphoria Case (1985) recorded at a studio in Newcastle
RS- vocal, guitar
Martyn Simpson - bass, guitar
Gary Phillips - keyboard
Ronnie Burke - drums
Mark Spybey - drums

11. "Nothing Comes of Nothing" by Richard Sanderson (1987) recorded in my flat in Brixton, London
RS - vocal, acoustic guitar

12. "Dealing In Absolutes" by Richard Sanderson (2003) recorded at LMC Sound, Brixton, London. Remixed by DJ Wrongspeed
RS- vocal, organ, sampler
DJ Timeslice - remix, extra beats

13. "Cool Location"
14. "My Blue Ship" by Richard Sanderson (2004) recorded at LMC Sound, Brixton for a live LMC podcast.
RS - vocal, sampling groovebox, memo recorder pen

15. "Your Precious Hoard" by Richard Sanderson (2005) recorded at Pascoe Road, Hither Green, London for the EP "Pinhole"
RS - vocal, accordion, ambient sound edits

16. "Half Empty" by Richard Sanderson (2005) recorded at LMC Sound for the EP "Pinhole"
RS- vocal, accordion, sampling groovebox
Ian R Watson - trumpet
Debra Scacco - flute
Chris Cundy - bass clarinet

17. "Babes In The Wood" by Richard Sanderson (2007) recorded live on the Resonance FM programme "Scaledown on your Radio" presented by Mark Braby
RS- laptop, vocal

18. "Backyard Ways" by Richard Sanderson (2009) recorded live by Clive Pearman at his house in Balham, London.
RS - laptop, vocal

All songs composed by Richard Sanderson (PRS) except "Hollow Call" (Sanderson with some lyrics by Mike Munson), "I Guess I'm Sentimental" (Sanderson/Ord), "Babes in the Wood" (Trad, arranged Sanderson)

1. "I Love The Festival Hall" well, I do. Bought cheap in their shop.
2. "Skulking Blackheath Morris Man" - personalised badge made for me by Mick the Pole, after I was caught skulking at the 40th Anniversary Ale.
3. "Kubus" Mysterious promotional badge given to me at the Turkish Food Centre, Lewisham.
4. Accidently detourned Paperchase badge that went through the wash and had the pattern completely erased
5. "I Love Hither Green" well I do. Handed to me at the Stapledon Road Christmas fayre.
6. Captain Scarlet "Spectrum" badge bought at a picture framing shop in Whitby.
7. One of a series of excellent "Viewmaster" badges obtained from eBay.
8. (upside down - sorry!) John Shuttleworth as Medusa badge, present from land_girl
9. "Home is where the record player is" brilliant gift from skitster
10. "I am 3" on a birthday card for Jack.
11. "hello sailor" saucy badge from National Maritime Museum
12. "Blackheath Morris Men 40th Anniversary Ale, 2009" what a weekend!
13. "Saddleworth Rushcart" 35th Year. My third. Fantastic time as always.
14. "Maybe Morris" Maybe Morris is a person, a one woman morris team I met on the Rose and Castle Weekend of Dance.
15. Enamel Stockholm badge, one of a series from the wonderful Mary Huey in Osaka, thanks!
16. "Good For Your Art" from Lewisham People's Day
17. Cartoon shark/bomb thing from a door-knocking charity collector
18. "My Turn to be Poorly" Bryan Appleyard badge from land_girl again, thanks!
19. "British Red Cross" unsolicited gift in the mail
20. Lewisham Street Found Badge 1.
21. Lewisham Street Found Badge 2.
22. Lewisham Street Found Badge 3.
23. Lewisham Street Found Badge 4.

To see an enlargement click Here

"Three Ings marks an end to a period of performing songs accompanying myself on laptop. The three songs were all originally composed and performed on the laptop over the last two years. For these recordings I overdubbed a succession of acoustic instruments - melodeon, accordion, whistle, percussion etc plus stringed instruments (banjo, guitar etc played by The Earliest Humans), before removing the original computer backing. This left the songs with strange intervals and phrasings that I enjoyed, I then re-recorded the vocals.

Although the instrumental arrangements may suggest folk music, they aren't.
"Quill" is a song about songs, and specifically about the Blues and its cheapening into a byword for musical conservatism, masculinity and emotionalism.
"Sunday Air" is a pop song about dancing in public- something I now do quite regularly.
"Told By Magnets" is a song about electric guitars and how they can still move me, and how they are the perfect vehicle for disenchantment and alienation.

Special thanks to Clive Pearman for engineering and putting up with my endless faffing about, The Earliest Humans for the stringed instruments, Scott Taylor for the expert mastering, and Pete Farrell (where are you now?) for suggesting the title "Told By Magnets", 30 odd years ago

Ending, Beginning, Remembering. As a small child I lived at 65 Ings Road, the remaining 62 will come later."

"Three Ings" is available now from Amazon.

It is released by Fat Ghost.

I've uploaded two more tracks that mysteriously fell off the Drop - Definitive MP3 giveaway here - "A Sense of Loss" and "Get Out Of My Dreams" and I've fixed the fault with "Nothing Changes".

Also nice to see Drop getting radio airplay in Belgium thanks to my old chum Kosten Koper on Radio Panik. Thanks!

Here is the complete set from last Friday's performance by Paul May (percussion) and myself (melodeon through electronics). It's a free improvisation of just over 10 minutes duration.

Improvisation Paul May & Richard Sanderson (MP3)

Recorded by Andy Coules at The King and Queen, Fitzrovia, London.

1. Wednesday November 25th. Lost Robots play in their lower-key semi-acoustic incarnation at Oliver's Music Bar, Greenwich, alongside some very interesting other artists. Details here.

2. Friday November 27th - Scaledown. In a duo with Paul May, and with Lost Robots.
(click for enlargement)

Please note- I've managed to wangle my way into two combos for this evening, although I doubt I'll be paid twice.

3. Saturday November 28th - Tale of What! Lewisham Arthouse, in a trio with Paul May and Martin Hackett


Be nice to see any of you at any of these, as I'll probably have to stay in for month to pay for this excess!

Quite a lot of interesting things happening at the moment-

Mark Spybey, Steve Dinsdale and myself have finished recording an album (probably a vinyl LP) under the name "Pata-Particles". It's a wayward, multi-styled, fairly far-out beast, that even includes me playing the most skronky guitar I've done since the early 90s.

My EP "Three Ings" is about to be released by Fat Ghost. It's three new-ish songs with lyrics, tunes and entirely acoustic instrumentation. I'm very pleased with them.

I have contributed vocals to two tracks by the experimental folk/noise outfit "The Earliest Humans" for an album to be released in the new year.

There are serious hints that some Drop material from 1979 may be getting a welcome physical release. At which point the free MP3 bonanza in the previous post will probably be discontinued - so if lo-fi post-punk is your bag, fill your boots.

And I have two gigs coming up - on Friday 27th of November I'll be playing an improv duo with the extraordinary drummer Paul May at Scaledown - I'll be doing my squeezebox/electronics schtick.

And the following evening I have another improv gig, practically on my own doorstep at Lewisham Arthouse, this time with Thorn Gas (with Martin Hackett and, in place of Paul Hood, er Paul May again!) Details of that gig below.

More info on all to follow - but it's good news, I haven't been this busy musically for about 8 years!

To celebrate its 30th Anniversary, I have decided to make available the "legendary" cassette "Definitive" by my band of the time, Drop. Copies of this cassette have been circulating for many years, Radio Cleveland played bits of it over the airwaves, Julian Cope raved about it and unsuccessfully tried to get us signed to Zoo records, and Mark Hammonds probably still has a copy wrapped in cotton wool in his loft.

Drop coelesced out of my first punk band, The Silencers, and by the end of 1978, the steady line-up was-

Richard Sanderson - Vocals/Guitar
Neil Jones- Keyboards
Chris Oberon - Bass
Andy Kiss - Drums



We played our first gig at The Wellington in Middlesbrough (alongside Basczax, The Barbarians and others) where, scared to death, we rushed through a 17 song set in as many minutes. We played about 6 more gigs, at various places including the Teessider and Marton Sixth Form College, before I left, after going a bit loopy, late in the summer of 1979.

I still feel a strong affection for these songs - all written when I was aged 16 to 18, when I didn't drink, and seemed to be in a fury of creativity. The influences are pretty obvious, and tend to come from what I was listening to on John Peel at the time, Joy Division, The Fall and particularly Wire are all pretty evident.

These recordings are not exactly hi-fi, they were recorded at my parents house on a mono cassette recorder. We were schoolkids, so going into a studio was pretty much out of the question, and portastudios were still a few years off. But the mix of instruments and voice is pretty good, and I've heard a lot worse quality bootlegs.

We recorded this tape to try to get more gigs, and it didn't succeed in that, but Larry Ottaway of BBC Radio Cleveland was very enthusiastic about it, and a single on his "Pipeline Product" imprint was mooted. Julian Cope, who I'd met at Middlesbrough Rock Garden on the same day I left school, was also terrifically positive about it - comparing it to (amongst other things) The Seeds and Soft Machine, neither of whom I'd actually heard at the time, and pushed a reluctant Zoo records to sign us. They didn't.

After I left (eventually to join Tick Tick as bassist, preferring a more collaborative role) the band Drop continued without me, with Chris Oberon taking over the front man duties, and they recorded a single, before changing their name to "Colour Nine".

So here is the entire "Definitive" cassette. Although all recorded on the same day, the songs range in age from 1977 ("Sinking") to just before the recording was made (the giving-the-game-away "New Direction") For those of you who use iPods and iTunes, I've transcribed the lyrics which you can now view. To my 49 year old self they range from the excruciatingly embarrassing to the liveable-with, but they're there and I wrote them.

Be 16 again.

1. Instro 1.35
2. Burning The Evidence 4.23
3. Get The Point 1.09
4. Diamond 1.45
5. Frozen Film 2.48
6. New Direction 2.50
7. Nothing Changes (long version) 1.18
8. No Rock 3.23
9. French Windows 3.29
10. Sinking 3.22
11. Nothing to Nowhere 1.32
12. I Want to Watch 1.27
13. Making The Connection 2.11
14. In The Background 1.07
15. Running Out of Time 3.13
16.Move Me 3.12
17.The New Education 1.15
18.Talking To Myself 1.33
19. Instrumental With Fade 1.32
20. I Wanna Be Your Dog 5.10
21. Get Out Of My Dreams 2.35
22. A Sense of Loss 2.44
23. Radio Cleveland Feature 6.16

All songs composed and (c) Richard Sanderson, except "I Wanna Be Your Dog" by The Stooges, and Instro, which was a group composition

Special thanks to Neil, Chris and Andy - I know I wasn't always easy to work with, but your dedication and musicality carried me along. I would love to hear from you again. Thanks also to the other, less permanent members of Drop 1978-79 - Genevieve Pink, Stewart Rickard, Mark Sanderson and Mark Spybey.

Well, somebody's got to do it.

Actually I think I look quite cool, in a geeky sort of way...

(photo taken by Kev Hopper at last Wednesday's "Thorn Gas" gig)

It's become another annual event on here to record the two minute silence at the Cenotaph on Rememberance Sunday - or rather the ambience of the Sanderson household at that time. (inspired by Jonty Semper's "Kenotaphion" project)

Here is this year's silence (MP3)

Last year's is here.

The Bagrec Annual Blackheath Fireworks Post.

This was the second year running that we missed the ginormous fireworks display in Blackheath - it's still a little overwhelming for 2 and 3 year olds...

However we were able to watch it, with a confusing 5 second sound delay from the window of our new loft extension, which has a lovely view over the parks to Blackheath - and the show wasn't half bad - it featured a new (to me) firework design which resembled an opening daisy.

And being from this distance we were spared any "accompanying" music (a real bete noire of mine) other than the glorious (if out of sync) music of the fireworks themselves.

I have another gig with "Thorn Gas" the improv trio consisting of Paul Hood (turntables), Martin Hackett (synthesizer) and myself (squeezebox thru electronics). The last one I publicised actually resulted in one paying customer, so maybe I can repeat that feat by announcing a performance this Wednesday at Klinker South (The Ivy in Nunhead). Also on is the improv duo of Blurt's Dave Aylward with Tom Scott performing as "Rabbit" and some bloke who apparently works with with hotwired "Furby" toys...

Details here...

I've become a bit obsessed by this song recently-



It's called "Timer" and it's by Laura Nyro, and I've known it for years but recently I've become completely fascinated by it, as its strangeness, rather than wearing off through familiarity has increased.

On first hearing it sounds like what it basically is - a Brill Building style 60's pop song with pretensions. But on repeated listenings the oddness becomes more apparent- where, for example is the chorus? In fact the song seems to be lots of different choruses stuck together, and then...what the hell's it about?

On first hearing I thought the title was just an abbreviation of the American expression "Ol' Timer", but after much listening I've become convinced it's a song about the nature of time itself. It's about the fractured nature of time and memory (a "jigsaw") and ageing ("I belong to timer, he changed my face") and nostalgia ("I could walk through those doors to a pleasureground"). And if these lyrical clues weren't enough then there's the song itself which goes through umpteen different time signatures in less than 3 and a half minutes. Complexity pop indeed.

I recently heard an interview with the author David Peace in which he talked about his habit of copying out by hand chunks of books he admired in an effort to work out how the author had written it - an admirable practice I think, and one I'm tempted to try with "Timer" as I still can't get to the bottom of this song. I still find the song utterly fascinating, and occasionally a bit irritating - the intro for example, with it's slightly hysterical rushing (missed out of a later live version interestingly) and her own multitracked harmonies, much revered by her fans, but which I find distracting, Nyro sounded so much better with others providing the harmonies (such as Labelle on the sublime "Gonna Take a Miracle"), and, well I could do without the reference to God too.

But these are minor quibbles about a song of such glorious optimism, and wonderful orchestration - the rolling piano and those chimes, man. A wise and wonderful song about time, written by a woman who was aged just 20 when it was recorded in 1968, and yet was almost exactly two fifths of the way through her life too. Just more levels of time-related irony there...

And yet I'm told Laura Nyro's cat was called "Timer".

The puzzle continues...



There's a good quality full-length version of "Timer" on Last FM, here

Despite the weather, Blackheath Morris Men are dancing in Greenwich this afternoon, meeting at the Mitre at 2.30pm. We'll be outside Greenwich Picturehouse before the showing of "Morris - A Film With Bells On" at 4pm.
Details of the film are here

"A heartwarming feature-length comedy about an avant-garde Morris Dancer, Derecq Twist, and his fight to modernise Morris Dancing."