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
22. 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)

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

When I met up with my old friend Mark Spybey, and my cousin and friend Mark Sanderson, I wanted to establish how we started making music together, because it's actually a rather unusual thing for friends to start doing. I made some notes, and then wrote this down whilst waiting for the count at the Lewisham East Labour Party Selection Hustings (I'm sure people thought I was a journalist) now transcribed from reams of spidery writing

Mark Sanderson and Mark Spybey were in the same class at primary school in Redcar. Being about 5 months older than Mark Sanderson (here-in referred to as "Sandy") I'd known Sandy forever. I got to know Spybey when we were all about 11 years old. We came together through a shared love of science fiction and Gerry Anderson programmes, and we all played together in Zetland Park, Redcar.



Some time when we were about 12 we all became interested in music - some of this came from playing with tape recorders- reel-to-reels which were owned by both Sandy and I's fathers - messing around with speeds and sound effects to make mock radio programmes. Sandy remembers me recording my eye (?) whilst I remember first experimenting with tape loops. We were also listening to highlights from my Dad's record collection, which in amongst the usual budget classical there lurked John Cage and BBC Radiophonic workshop LPS. Sandy's Dad had a John Barry LP which we were all hugely impressed by, and Spybey's older brother John's "rock" record collection included the regular prog classics but also oddities like Tangerine Dream's "Phaedra".

Around this time I'd discovered the music of Hawkwind (after an article in Science Fiction Monthly about SF in rock) which brought together several interests - science fiction, weird noises and rock music. We, as friends, moved from listening (and miming) to music, to wanting to make it - and "Space Rock" was our destination. "Solaris" (named by me after the Tarkovsky film) was born.

Spybey progressed from playing his parent's armchair to playing Sandy's Dad's Boys Brigade snaredrum (this was last seen in Sandy's Dad's garden being used to "force" rhubarb, although curiously a member of Blackheath Morris has an identical one, which I will photograph). Mark Sanderson took up the guitar, and I played the piano.

Of course none of us could actually play. We all found strategies for getting around this obstacle- I got round this by hitting clusters on the piano with my fist whilst keeping the sustain pedel permanently down (a sound nicked from Rick Wright's work on Floyd's "A Saucerful of Secrets" that at times sounds like a very feeble Cecil Taylor impersonator) Sandy took a radical aproach to the guitar, by playing mainly with a slide and employing a furious strumming technique. Many years later I realised his style was remarkably similar to that of Sonny Sharrock, the seminal free jazz guitarist.

Spybey played the one drum we had with brushes, producing cyclical patterns (again influenced by Floyd) which gave the otherwise meterless music a strong rhythmic undertow.

We recorded "albums" in 1974 ("Encapsulated Insanity") and 1975 ("Siralos") when we would have been aged around 13 and 14. An "album" was effectively a cassette that had got to the stage where it was filled up with songs, jams and improvisations. Beautiful, intricate covers were then made for them using collage techniques we'd all suddenly become very enthusiastic about - all gate-folds and fold-outs as was the prog fashion of the times.



Other instruments began to be used - tin whistles (which I endeavoured to play in the style of my hero, Nik Turner of Hawkwind), the old reel-to-reel was employed to produce feedback, and my cousin bought a Stylophone - the closest thing to the beloved synthesizer that we could get. Sandy maintains that I once walked into an electronics shop in Middlesbrough, pointed to the tuning knob on the back of the Stylophone and asked "Can I get a more variable one of those?"

The band expanded a couple of times - Neil Jones (later to join me in Drop) added a more dexterous version of the thump and crash piano style I'd developed, and at one point we had a vocalist in the lugubrious form of the mysterious Lou Reed sound-alike, Rob Walker, a school-friend of mine from round the corner who also owned a reed organ.

The demise of Solaris, was brought about, oddly enough, by a desire to be more musically proficient, Mark (and I for a while) joined up with some local kids with real instruments, some ability and a Wishbone Ash fixation, before Sandy and I got together again with Neil Jones to form "Sky" or "The Earth Ensemble" which riffed on a Third Ear Band /Macbeth obsession of mine and stuck to a similar instrumentation to Solaris, before becoming the punk group "The Silencers", later "Genny (pronounced "Jenny") and the Silencers" then "Strange People", then "Drop" where, for a while all the old Solarians were re-united. Our imagination and ambition coupled with a lack of technical ability and dirt-cheap instruments ensured we finally fell in perfectly with the punk zeitgeist. At last.

Soundfiles (MP3)
Return To Chaos Part 4 (1975 - from "Siralos")
Protoplasmic Ocean (1974 - from "Encapsulated Insanity")
Thunder Part 2 (1974 - from "Encapsulated Insanity")


Solaris, Redcar 2009 -

Mark Spybey, Richard Sanderson and Mark Sanderson (photo - Steve Dinsdale)

Lost Robots will be performing live at Recluse tomorrow (Thursday) night. Recluse is at The Flea Pit, 49 Columbia Road, London, E2 7RG.

Also performing are Alex Monk and Oscar Lomas and the marvellous Alan Tomlinson Trio (Alan Tomlinson - trombone, Phil Marks - drums, Dave Tucker - guitar)

There's a weird connection in that three of Lost Robots used to be in the Fall cover band "The Hideous Replicas" and Dave Tucker used to play clarinet with The Fall.

Lost Robots have elected to play acoustically for this event - the line up probably being, Mark Braby - voice, percussion and things, Andy Coules - bass, Clive Pearman - banjo and Richard Sanderson - squeezebox, clarinet and small instruments. We will be improvising.

Also promised are DJ sets from Hybernation and visuals from FBox Records.

Admission is a recession busting £3.

In the meantime, Lost Robot's last performance - a remarkably restrained improvisation at Scaledown is now available as a download. 14 mins for a mere 69p.

There are a few exciting musical things going on I should tell you about-

Firstly, a set of "pop" songs I've been recording with Clive Pearman are finally nearly finished (after six months!). They're songs I used to perform with a laptop, but I've added lots of acoustic instruments (accordion, melodeon, percussion, tin whistle and Clive's banjo and guitar) and stripped the computer away. I'm pretty excited about the results, which will be released as an EP called "Three Ings" on Fat Ghost later in the year.

Secondly work has started on a three-way collaborative release by Mark Spybey, Steve Dinsdale and myself. Early days yet, but so far the results have been very intriguing indeed.

Thirdly, I actually have a gig. "Thorn Gas", the trio of Martin Hackett (synthesizer), Paul Hood (record players and electronics) and myself (melodeon and electronics) are performing at Battersea Arts Centre on Wednesday October 21st.

If anybody reading this puts gigs on can they let me know, as I'm itching to play more live improv.

Glommed from the Rock Garden Facebook page- the bizarre occasion when Smash Hits magazine decided to run a two page article on the Teesside music scene. This dates from 1979. To my knowledge not one artist in this article got remotely near to having a "smash hit".

You can just about read the pages if you click on them and then select "full size".

Two bands I was in get a mention - "Drop" and "Tic Tic" (sic) although in that worrying journalistic way the facts are wrong - I was the singer and guitarist in Drop not the bassist, and I didn't form Tick Tick, they existed before I joined.

Really great to see that picture of "Shoot The Lights Out" though, they were a genuinely avant garde band from Hartlepool, a crushingly loud and atonal drumless duo of guitar and bass, a drifting formless racket. I'd love to hear a recording of them again. Their singer is a quite interesting Americana/country artist now...

Here is a scan of the Wire review of "The Setland L.P." by Mike Barnes-



There's also a rather good review at Brainwashed.com by Andrew Gowans-

This is the first release from these long time friends and collaborators. Having been cohorts for 40 forty years, playing in groups together as far back as 1974, this album captures a day's recording back in 1992. My preconceptions of this collection of vintage home recordings being like the musique concrète stylings of early Dead Voice On Air were shattered within seconds of the album's opening track. I will confess to stopping the LP and taking out the disc to check it was the right album.

"Watch" opens the album with dirge feedback-guitar, heavy crunching drums sounding like a lost, Psychocandy-era, Jesus And Mary Chain single. As the distorted guitars and buried vocals gather momentum, however, they suddenly stop a minute in, and unabashedly the track changes to a warped electronic soundscape. From here "Watch" quickly turns again, this time to a heavy No Wave sound of rapid drums and Sanderson’s free-jazz saxophone. The track ends by serging into a sparse drone with looped Vocal snippets, similar to Spybey’s later, more minimal output.

The five tracks on the album are almost meaningless guides, as the album stops and starts and changes pace and style so frequently it should either be indexed 20-30 times or released as a single 45-minute entity. There’s frenzied garage rock, bass heavy drones, cut-up samples, screeching jazz, and each movement provides no idea where the record will go next. It is strength of the album, however, as it is accomplished with great results making the listening experience akin to the mania of playing The Faust Tapes.

In interviews Spybey has frequently cited Can and Faust as inspirations but never has their influence been more explicit on a release than The Setland L.P. The heavy, repetitive drumming is dotted throughout the album; while the second track, "Power Cut," eventually veers into a heady, feedback dripping, cover of Faust’s "Sunshine Girl." No Wave and Free Jazz nods are found throughout and there are several lengthy menacing ambient pieces backed with radio samples, reminiscent of Throbbing Gristle’s "Ecoli."

The whole album has this warm feeling of being two friends’ condensed mixtape of a lengthy day’s jamming, experiments, and homages to the music they grew up listening to on cold, grey days in the North of England. The Steland L.P. is very raw, obviously recorded with minimal production in a home studio, but what is here transcends their recording limitations. At points the album can be frustrating, as a more catchy moment suddenly cuts out far too soon, but the vast amount of diverse and interesting sounds means there’s never a dull movement, and makes this an exciting and highly recommended listen.

The album is (unfortunately) only available as a digital download from Lens records, as either .mp3 or lossless .flac. Personally I would have liked a physical release, but ultimately it’s great this is available in any format. Let’s hope the follow up album Spybey has alluded to also sees the light of day.

I like the fact that both reviews have pretty accurately summed up the story of this recording, as well as making pretty spot-on guesses at the influences. It's funny, I really can't stand Throbbing Gristle, but "Ecoli" is one of the tracks I'm more fond of, although AMM and Keith Rowe in particular were probably more of an influence on those tracks for me.

Curiously, we're not the only North Easterners to have an album recorded in 1992 but only seeing the light of day now...

I am delighted to announce that the excellent net label Fat Ghost have released an exclusive track by me as the latest edition in their "singles club" series. It is a 9 minute solo free improvisation for melodeon through electronics called "19th/20th C" (I know it hardly rolls off the tongue, but it's not exactly into Anthony Braxton territory either)...



You can read about it, and why it has such a daft title, and download it from here.

The track has been mastered by the estimable Scott Taylor, and is available from i-tunes, Amazon, eMusic and Napster for the usual price of a single track (eg 69p from Amazon).

I should also mention that my previous release, a duo with Mark Spybey called The Setland L.P. on Lens Records received a splendid review by Mike Barnes in this month's edition of The Wire - This Heat, Faust and Chrome were mentioned, as was morris dancing.

That was my trumpet, and I've bloody well blown it.

Solaris - my first ever band, formed in 1974 when we were 13 and 14...

left to right - Mark Spybey, Richard Sanderson, Mark Sanderson, in "The Yorkshire Bay", Redcar.



or as Ruth put it it more succinctly- "three old blokes in a pub"

Photo taken by the lovely Steve Dinsdale, who also has a post on this momentous event

This holiday is creeping towards its conclusion.

Holiday Photo Checklist-

1. Photo of children running away shrieking from the sea - check

2. Photo of children with faces smeared in ice-cream - check

3. Photo of the sea with unintended tilting horizon - check

4. "Arty" shot of the sea with lobster pots in the foreground - check

5. Photo of children being held by Northern relatives - not yet

6. Several photos of the back of child's head whilst on funfair ride - check

Having quite a nice time - although cursing the circumstances that resulted in the children being ill whilst the weather was glorious, and being full of beans whilst it returned to Redcar typical - rain, wind and generally overcast. Still we have managed to paddle in the sea, ride a miniature railway, fly a kite and visit several photogenic places, so I can't complain.

Yesterday afternoon was marvellous - I met up with Mark Spybey and my cousin brotherturold in the Yorkshire Bay, a pub I've seen since I was tiny, but obly went in for the first time a few years ago. Back when we were 13 and 14 (1975) we formed our very first band - an experimental "space-rock" group called "Solaris". Also there was Steve Dinsdale whose blog was instrumental in getting us together. I played with him in a band called "Macbeth" back in 1983, and probably hadn't seen him since. It was a very entertaining few hours, consisting of lots of jolly nostalgia and punctuated by much laughter. I will post on this further, when I can post picture.

When we get home our loft extension should be finished. That'll be nice.

...from my recent lyrics quiz.

"bumping out through the eye on a wire of knots" Is from "Dealer" by Scott Walker, from "Climate of Hunter" (1984)

and

Until you're fully grown, you've got a really good shot is from "Brother Sport" by Animal Collective from "Merryweather Post Pavilion" (2009)

still, fun though, eh?

I had a lot of fun down at Scaledown last night. I took advantage of being a punter and only stayed to watch the acts I was interested in, so I could afford to chat to old friends (so sorry, comedy-pop and country were not for me I'm afraid), but I was rewarded by a stupendous set from John Butcher - starting with slowly rolling waves of notes (whilst still sounding oddly downbeat "jazzy") he moved towards a more droning undulating sound via circular breathing, before building the intensity and volume towards a shrieking climax - fabulously controlled and concise. Also fantastic was the accordionist Mike Adcock who performed three "songs", including a strangely transmogrified Louisiana version of "Show Me The Way To Go Home" and ending with a curiously touching live montage for knackered accordion, music box and child's speak and spell - bewitching. I was a bit late and only caught a snatch of the set by Alex Monk, stringed instruments, casios and too many a lot of effects pedals (or "improviser's folly" as I call it) actually produced a pretty impressive multi-layered drone of hums and twangs, making me regret my tardiness.

The rest of night was spent drinking pints of Adnams (which always tastes fine at the King and Queen) and reaquainting myself with a lot of old chums who I haven't seen for donkey's years. Hello to one time co-club runner Mike Walter (proudly showing me his senior citizens' bus pass), long-time improv gig goer Phil Saward, my former office colleagues Pam, Sue, Sharon, Danny, Adrian and Sharon (all telling me how healthy and slim I'm looking - which is bloody nice to hear - getting out of the office clearly has some benefits), and music chums Scott Taylor (who I was able to thank for remastering my solo improv track so nicely) and the Lost Robots gang. It was particularly lovely to see strictlytrue, as the last time I saw him I was hopelessly drunk (it was the occasion of my "I'm going to be a dad" drink-up). I can report he's also looking very healthy and happy - but a proper chat and meet up is required soon, I think.

I came home surrounded by a warm glow - friends are good, aren't they?

I've always fancied doing one of these - usual rules apply- no cheating, no googling, just tell me the artist and song of any of these. Prize = personal glory.

1) Bumping out through the eye, on a wire of knots

2) If they can dance on the head of a pin, don't that tell you something about their skin? "When The Angels" - Prefab Sprout - well done eskimolimon

3) I have been indulging in ostentatious display "Model Worker" -Magazine - congrats to missfrost

4) Your words are empty hollow bleatings of a mental crutch "Blue Rosebuds" The Residents- bradxxx got the artist, but flamingfairy got both!

5) She pisses icy water on poetic mornings, gotta be cruel to be kind - "Too Late" - Wire - ortho_bob on the case!

6) Our only defence is together as an army, I'll hold you like a gun - "She is Beyond Good and Evil" -The Pop Group - well done bradxxx

7) Next year I'm gonna be twenty two - I say "oh my" and "boo hoo" "1969" -The Stooges got by clever old alfaguru

8) Until you're fully grown, you've got a real good shot

9) To be insulted by these fascists is so degrading - "It's No Game" - David Bowie, caught first by cyberinsekt

10) Responsibility to me is a tragedy. -"Lost in Music" - Sister Sledge - disco king 30milesormore spotted this one

I'll be checking back to see how you're getting on...

The little monthly live music club started by Mark Braby and I is now five years old.
There's a gig to celebrate this on Friday, with a pretty impressive line-up. As ever - it's also free to get in.



Here's the bumf-

Mark Braby, Andy Coules, Shaun Hendry, Dan Whaley and Richard Sanderson present the Extra Special Fifth Anniversary Extravaganza Scaledown Event. Yes, all five previous curators of Scaledown are getting together for one awesome night to celebrate Five Whole Years of Scaledown.

Each curator has been asked to select one act from a particular year to create a unique bill that represents the varied cross section of acts that have appeared at Scaledown in the past five years as well as one new act to represent what the future holds.

Admission is free to members (show your membership card) otherwise sign in for membership. Donations, to the performers, will be sought.

Friday 31st July


Performing at the Extra Special Fifth Anniversary Extravaganza Scaledown Event (in chronological order - not performance order):

2004 - John Butcher - A saxophonist who has completely re-invented the language of the instrument and taken it further out than anybody before. As an improvisor Butcher is a mercurial, analytical and always fascinating musician.

2005 - Mike Adcock - Multi instrumentalist and innovative experimentalist, Mr Adcock explores extensively the areas of free improvisation with humour and depth using his accordion and ethnic instruments he has collected from his travels.

2006 - The Mystery Fax Machine Orchestra - Whilst an orchestra might not seem the most appropriate choice for Scaledown the MFMO exhibit a bijou charm that somehow seems to fit the setting. Led by accordionist Martin White they present a mix of original comic songs and settings of Victorian poetry backed by a multitasking chamber group.

2007 - Don Tempi - Tonight we're gonna party like it's 1981. In July. And only watching adverts.

2008 - Alex Monk - Using laptop, guitar, electronics, and field recordings, Alex Monk concocts intense atmospheric layers of improvisation. Welcome back Mr Monk.

2009 - Susie Hug - Former Katydids vocalist Susie previews tracks from her forthcoming album recorded out in Arizona with Calexico.

Friday 31st July,
7pm to 11pm
The King and Queen,
1 Foley Street,
London

Admission Free - donations to the performers will be sought.
W1W 6DL

I really enjoyed this post on Steve Dinsdale's blog. Steve is another old friend of mine from the North East, and in this post he somehow manages to encapsulate leaving school, discovering music, first playing in a band, and the mightiest of all years for music - 1979. Includes great pictures and some of the music he and his chums (including Mark Spybey and my cousin brotherturold) made. A splendid bit of nostalgic reportage.

Nostalgia of another kind over at Cedar Lounge Revolution where there's an ongoing series of posts marking the moon landing anniversary. Lots of amazing photos and some great writing including references to JG Ballard and Moon Zero Two.

On the audio front I've been rediscovering the extraordinary LP ""Alone on Penguin Island by Desmond Simmons. I have some sympathy for Desmond Simmons, as he has a name almost as boring as "Richard Sanderson" and yet he made a pop LP which is still puzzling, compelling, adventurous and downright peculiar nearly 30 years later.

As far as I can gather Desmond Simmons was a friend of Wire, and he played on some of Colin Newman's (great) solo albums, and there are some superficial similarities with Wire - some robotik rhythms, a pared down song structure etc - but a load of other stuff too - strange banjo-like acoustic instrumentation, some great harmony/noise-cathedral tracks like "Pathenon", interesting lyrics (and I'm very fussy about lyrics)- "Keeping you here on my raft" "Carry a torch to the fire's edge" etc.

I've copied it from my tatty LP to my iPod and its getting a lot of play again - although I'm surprised to discover it actually got a CD re-issue in 1995 which completely passed me by. Anyway its some kind of genius - Desmond Simmons, where are you now?

Here's the spooked "Counterpane" and the linear obsessional "A Caste From Hawaii" from "Alone On Penguin Island" (MP3s)

At the other end of the musical spectrum I've been really grooving to the Duke Ellington "Blanton-Webster Band" box set again. For many years I've hardly been able to listen to jazz after my awful experience of selling it for the V*rg*n Meagrestore...I think I might be getting better at last.

I've also been loving Psychoville, possibly against my better judgement (you may remember me railing against the preponderance of "dark" comedy) But when it's as sparklingly written, creepy, well observed and, well lets face it, funny as this, I can forget all about my complaints about "Nighty Night" and "Happiness" and their ilk...


Simmons/Ellington

Some of you may know that in an earlier life I used to put on gigs. A LOT of gigs as it happens, weekly gigs for over five years, then monthly ones for a fair bit of time and weird one-offs.

I've started a Gallery featuring some of the flyers for these gigs - most of which I made myself. Some date from before I had any access to DTP, and many date from before I could even send out emails or advertise the gigs online.
The best you could hope for was that Time Out or The Guardian Guide mentioned you, or somebody picked up one of these flyers...

A few of interest-

The I-couldn't-even-afford-Letraset "Club Room International Newsletter from April 1997 (these were posted and sometimes delivered by hand)

A gig I know for a fact strictlytrue was at, some 6 years before I knew him.

The Bloke Newington Festival of Men's Improvisation.

Goodness knows what I was running on back then...

I wasn't always a New Labour Stooge you know. There was a time (about '96/'97) when I was very interested in Situationism, and produced and handed out flyers like the one below.

The funny thing is, after all these years I still agree with it. After all, the sentiments are not a million miles away from a recent post on Michael Jackson. I may even start printing them again...