the sound of music

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I
For many years I have come to see the Mersey as the grand shaman, the wise and spiritual conduit that looks over and protects the good people it serves. Unlike other great sages and seers this one has a built in fallibility, a non-too-proud ability to take its eye off the job in hand, let the land figure out for itself what to do and leave our destiny to whatever will be. It has brought my friends, neighbours and ancestors long periods of incredible good fortune and social stability, it brought people, millions of people, lost and searching for the answer, hopeful that its next twist and turn would lead them to the exact spot they want to be. Millions found that spot, they knew exactly where to look and it was precisely where it was meant to be. Yet millions couldn’t find the spot at all, they had no idea where it was and despite all their best efforts and intentions they were clearly looking in the wrong place. For these lost souls it provided a new home, Liverpool became their new world, for better or for worse it was Shangri-la in reverse, a dark, cold impoverished hell-hole of sea farers and disease. These are the ghosts and fabric of this city, this is why we are what we are, we can analyse it to death, following social trends and historical data but we shall remain a mongrel horde begat by scoundrels and no-goodniks. We didn’t build this city on rock’n’roll, we didn’t build this city at all, this city was built on hard labour and broken dreams and the heart of this shattered hope was the river itself. And what it has deemed fitting and good it has provided in abundance, and as history attests everything it has provided it has taken away. In double quick time. It is a story of both monumental triumph and equal despair writ large and played out for the known world to see.




II
I lived for many years with a woman who was born and brought up in Birmingham, land-locked and a million miles from the sea. She moved to Liverpool to study art in the early eighties and never left, we lived together for fifteen years and over the years I come to understand there is a fundamental difference between those raised on the coast and those who have no affinity with a close proximity to water. Over a long period of time she slowly shook off her landlubber persona and adopted the mindset of the coastal resident, extending her horizons and views to a more global, wallow in the whole wide world point of view. The difference of course, is the light and space on the coast, it adds a perspective and dimension of large distances and open space to your view that doesn’t exist in more claustrophobic inland areas. On the coast you can gaze out into the great unknown and feed your fertile imagination, everything that doesn’t exist on your own doorstep is accessible, it’s just beyond the horizon and if you have the wherewithal to project yourself upon the world, then it’s a simple place to begin. Everything is there to help you on your way and on a clear day you can see forever.

What Birmingham has is an intricate, and thankfully restored, network of canals, a 19th century spaghetti junction that supplied and fuelled the industrial revolution inland, dragging the modern age kicking and screaming through England’s central heart. However, held up against the awesome power and history of this mighty stretch of water there is no comparison. There is no spiritual and romantic connection with an intricate network of canals, the feeling of freedom and the ability to travel to the parts of the globe that only exist in the furthest recesses of your imagination is a characteristic of every major port and the river that serves it. Wanderlust permeates the soul, the curiosity of what is beyond ‘just over there’ is too much for these people to live with, something has to be done to stop these itchy feet and burning souls from consuming the very life-force of these people and the terrifying spectre boredom and never having been there.



III
Like billions of other people raised in this city I was fascinated and drawn to the river from a very early age, from very young I could hear the fog-horns on the ships negotiating the bad weather while I was lying in bed. To a child this has magnetic, hypnotic qualities, and to a child of my age it still had a whiff of romance and adventure, the feint possibility of other places and a different way of life. Maybe not thousands and thousands of miles away, maybe just around the next topographic corner, so to speak. It bestows upon you an overwhelming feeling that something else is out there, that there is much, much more to life than this dark, satanic urban sprawl. If you are gifted with the massive burden of a vivid imagination –and if you are prepared to put the hours in- the Mersey can and will take you wherever you want to go. Often without leaving the comfort of your own mind.




IV
Despite being 70 miles long and very, very real the Mersey has this mythical air about it, the history, the industry, the people all loom large in a legend so grand that as a work of fiction it would seem far-fetched and unbelievable. It is entrenched into the psyche of its bankside inhabitants in a way other waterways are not. Its history is entrenched into the psyche of the entire nation in a way others are not. As the gateway to the empire it was the stopping point between the east and the new world, the road of hope and aspiration where the dreams of the modern world are discussed, realised, bought, discarded and shattered. In that order.


The millions of hopeful émigrés that passed through created a new metropolitan city, the second city of the empire, affluent and bustling with trade. It became one the building blocks in the dubious explosion of capitalism and created a system of haves and have-nots in Liverpool that existed and ate away at the fibre of its society until as recently as the 1990’s. On the other side of its dubious commercial coin was its part in the trafficking and sustained misery of millions of unsuspecting émigrés, namely the slaves of west Africa, bound and exchanged for magic beans their tortured new lives were bought and sold on the exchanges of Liverpool’s waterfront. The brutalised spirits of these wretched, uprooted and terrified people shall haunt this city and all who sail in her for an eternity. What did we build this city on? May we have mercy on their unfortunate souls.




Liverpool inadvertently created affluence for the empire that had no trickle down effect on its citizens, the social degradation caused by rampant unchecked capitalism cut a swathe through history from the mid 19th century to the present day. Apart from a brief afternoon in the sunshine caused by The Beatles forty odd years ago, the nation conveniently forgot about the city and its wondrous river. The idle river became a metaphor for all that was wrong with our ailing society, as the Mersey died on its arse, so the nation crumbled around it. Changes in commercial practices in every department of life saw the end of its triumphant dominance of British shipping, the container became king of the seas and the Mersey’s narrow inlet became too small by a mile for modern freight carriage. Gradually –although the disappearance was more like the batting if an eyelid- the river ground to a halt and the once mighty docks and buildings fell into disrepair and dereliction that symbolised not only the colossal fall from grace Merseyside experienced but the erosion of the nation itself. What had once been the majestic, all encompassing springboard to another world and untold wealth was languishing in the doldrums of economic blight and a changing world that didn’t care and had in effect turned its back in a time of great need.




V
I have referred to the Mersey serving Liverpool, being its catalyst, social provider and spiritual mentor. Liverpool is the be all and end all of the Mersey, yes, it has two banks and as we said earlier it stretches for 70 miles so therefore other towns and villages crop up along its route. If it hadn’t have been for Liverpool and it’s position on the river I wouldn’t be writing this piece now. Wirral is a strange place, despite being nearer to my house than Goodison Park –as the crow flies- it remains without doubt one of the most mysterious places in most Liverpudlians lives. I have no idea of its layout, geography or inhabitants and other than getting on and off a train I have no idea how to get there. This may sound like classic metropolitan snobbery but there really is no need to have that sort of information. By and large the vast majority of those on this side never have to cross the river and by and large don’t. I know many people –myself included- who are infinitely more familiar with the streets of London or New York than what is on the other side of the water. There is a definite feeling that it is ‘our river’ that very occasionally we let other children have a look at. If they are really lucky and we are feeling benevolent we will let them hold it for a while.


But it’s ours, and it always will be.


this piece may have been previously published by caughtbytheriver.com






this week: i believe that i'm on the right track. i'm gonna keep on steppin', never lookin' back.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

catch.....the cure.
the rock.....delakota.
dance with the devil.....cozy powell.
sk1-the damager.....neil landstrumm.
money in my pocket (extended version).....dennis brown.
beginning the hours.....gareth williams.
sunshine motel.....richard t. bear.
this momentary......delphic.
journey to satchidananda.....alice coltrane.
love on a mountain top.....robert knight.
fit together (cosmo mix).....spektrum.
scorpio red.....the holy mackerel.
faster than light.....the mirror.
a night in new york.....elbow bones & the racketeers.
at last i am free.....robert wyatt.


made up and reassembled by bernie and sike. the bespoke audio people. x

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now hear this!


i was gonna write this really brilliant piece about apathy but i couldn't be arsed. every time me fingers hit the keys i feel like i should take a couple of hours off to recover, the recoil and shockwaves that surge through me body are too much to take. if i could go asleep i would.

it is the middle of the afternoon.


i-really-can't-be-bothered is not the best head space to be in when confronted with a deadline and an audience baying for blood. or red hot pop music, whichever comes first. i've tried really hard in the last couple of days to raise meself from this horrid torpor i've arrived in but nothing, but nothing seems to work. i've turned staring out of the window into an olympic sport and channel hopping on a tv i'm not watching into a fine art. the actual physical act of writing this is sapping the life out of me. and there appears to be nothing i can do about it.


apparently.


i have a half baked yet brilliant pice of writing about 1979 that needs about three paragraphs to finish, yet in languishes somewhere in another window awaitng my attention that may never happen. i seem to have a lot on me mind but apart from the obvious things i can't see what's freaking me out so much. maybe it's the time of year, or maybe it's the time of man but it feels like the entire universe could grind to a halt and i wouldn't be that arsed at the moment.


i don't feel waywardly depressed or desperately unhappy, a mere smidgin of both seems to have infected my normally sunny disposition and rendered me a bit down in the serotonin basement, a hobbit with a face like a smacked arse, chewing a wasp. i'm not banking on keeping this up for too long -i don't wanna imply i can switch this on and off at will- any longer than this week would be dangerous, if i'm not back in happy valley by monday it could be a trip to the quacks to feel the all encompassing cushion of medical attention.

the next time you read this page i will have turned the corner onto happiness drive and be strolling hand in hand with mirth and laughter. honest, just you wait and see.

at least we have a plethora of popular music at hand.


this week: we tried everything. it didn't work. again.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.


the hustle.....van mccoy & the soul city symphony.
that lucky old sun.....frankie laine.
the tenure itch.....the pains of being pure at heart.
bug in the bassbin.....innerzone orchestra.
san francisco girls.....fever tree.
spaghetti circus.....still going.
all the pilgrims.....the brute chorus.
you're lying.....linx.
billy porter.....mick ronson.
in violet.....health.
dance sucker (francois kevorkian mix).....set the tone.
life, the unsuspecting captive.....michael nesmith.
mojo rising.....rontrent.
it'll never be over for me.....baby washington.


electronic frogs kissed by bernie and sike. the bespoke audio people. x

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i got involved in a heated debate with some slightly elderly gentlemen recently who were bemoaning the fact that all modern music was shit. i argued to the contrary, i believe modern music is in perfect rude health. granted, the top 40 may be abyssmal, but then it's always seemed to be that way. you don't realise what you have till it's gone and been replaced by something even more shoddy and decidedly inferior.

there's never been a better time to be into music, everything is there at your fingertips, the only deciding factor being how much you want in your life. never mind the instant access we have via file sharing and downloads, in the real world of hard copy and actual sales nothing ever gets deleted. the reissues and 'oldies' market are booming -inasmuch as any aspect of the record business booms these days. record labels and enthusiasts have realised that there is just enough oddball completists out there to warrant a second -or often third- time around for even the most obscure and long dead of releases.


but it easn't always thus, in the early eighties when i got into buying records in earnest many of the albums now deemed irreplaceable classics had been deleted for many years. last night the sike and i were discussing this, he told me he'd bought the first few mothers of invention albums for a quid each on a market stall at a time when they were not available through their record companies. it's hard to believe in the here and now that there was ever a time when any of frank zappa's catalogue was not available, it seems unfeasible, just plain daft. the same record label had kept the first three velvet underground albums in print but deleted the zappas. strange. similarly the works of huge selling acts like traffic, sly & the family stone, the byrds, the supremes and even the monkees were consigned to the second hand store of life where they became the seeds of what we now call the record collector market.


everything gets reissued these days, there's a label or outlet for every taste and style of music imaginable, it's seems a logical thing to do. there always was a demand for these things, when i first held a copy of making time by the creation in my grubby little teenage mitts it was barely fifteen years old, yet the creation were like some mythical beast that may or may not have existed, a footnote to the end of the london mod thing and the charge towards something more colourful. back in the here and now the creation are rightly lauded as one of the great british groups of all time with tons of fan-sites dedicated to their short but bright career. but it was a hard slog, you had to hang on in there. thanks to reissue powerhouses like kent, edsel and bam caruso the cream of the british mod and soul thing became readily available to buy, take home and adore, their output reflecting the growing appetite for all things gone and passed by.

in reissuing these long gone nuggets and rubble a floodgate was opened in which certain music fans found their niche, immersed themselves in the genre of their choice and stayed there in a past that never existed. in a way this may seem naive, yet these nerdy types opened the door for us to enjoy whatever music we want, whenever we want. the arse fell out of the collector market for a while, but so what? what it gave was the freedom to appreciate the music we love at a price we could understand. in order to see what's happening in the present it can really help to see what was going on onn the past. but, and it's a big but, with pop music the best place to be is the future, be at the centre of its evolution and you'll never feel alone or neglected.

pop music didn't die the day the clash split up, no sir bob. pop music is an ever changing, self-generating organism that stops for no man. just because a certain sound is not the epicentre of your universe doesn't mean it isn't valid, or worse, doesn't exist. there are millions of hours of music available for us to consume as i write this, how you choose to deal with that is up to yourself, if you don't like the music you hear in your daily life, un-plug the jukebox, and do yourself a favour. the greatest record you've never heard is just around the corner, it just depends where you're looking and listening. same as it ever was.

this week: we turned up the sunshine. metaphorically of course.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

supernature.....cerrone.
if i were a fish.....mum.
turn the heater on.....keith hudson.
i'm so young.....the students.
concrete jungle.....silkie.
i can't make a friend.....the vagrants.
no body (levon vincent remix).....jori hulkkonen.
stoned out of my mind.....the chi-lites.
map ref. 41n 93w.....wire.
....you too.....fontan.
cowgirl in the sand.....neil young.


chased down the street, taunted and trapped inside a box by bernie and sike. the bespoke aduio people. again. x

image: pork chop hill (slight return) by tim whittaker. c.1983.

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just when you thought it was safe to back into the futhest recesses of your mind......over the last few days i've been reminded of how cruel and uncertain life can be, the ever presents and certainties that make up our daily lives can be brushed to one side in a single act of unfathomable horror. that horror however can be catalyst that spurs you on to a brighter, moire rewarding day. in my case the unfathomable horror of the last week has been that i know all the words to cliff richard's bachelor boy.


and it doesn't stop there, no sir, not at all. while i busy myself at work the radio is essential, of course. i have difficulty listening to pop music radio, the music is fine, it's the inane ramblings of the presenters that can be a challenge. therefore there's only so much of the world service you can take, once you've familiarised yourself with the irregularities of the afghani election or obama's healthcare nightmare there's very little else to shout about. as a stark alternative i have the station that plays everlasting love every twenty minutes banging away in the background. the upshot of this is you're showered with both the absolute glories and the abnsolute demons of post-war pop.

in a perfect world services like this would be subscriber only, require a pin number and be kept out of the way of children and more impressionable adults like myself. imagine you surprise on a blitering sunny day you discover that far from being the hard-man of leftfield pop, you are a lackey of the corporate oldies market, a slave to the opening bars of silence is golden, whoring yourself minute by minute as you realise you can sing along to every word of mr. blue sky as though jeff lynne occupies the sacred ground you may have reserved in your life for joy division, king tubby or the residents. and i really don't mind physical by olivia newton john, it's all encompassing blandness can be a warm place to hide away from the pressures of daily life. similarly when you're in love with a beautiful woman by dr hook can be the audio comfort blanket your daily routine screams out for in times of stress and will beat neu's negativland into a cocked hat in the feelgood stakes. but bachelor boy..........?


i really can't stress enough how strange this can make you feel, discovering you have one foot in the future and the other firmly entrenched in the top 40 of september 1980 is a whole new direction to take. i love the beige feeling you get from oldies radio, the presenters sort of fade away into the background after the first sentence and all you get is the title of the record and which holiday camp is hosting their end of year sixties spectacular. which is nice. and, if it means that it eradicates the need for george lamb, jo whiley and jonathan ross it can only be good thing, yes?

did i ever tell you i once had a dream about jo whiley? oh no...oh no...oh no...


this week: we picked ourselves up and started again.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

tainted dub.....soft cell.
fiya...... tUne-YaRdS.
will you miss me?....woody guthrie.
open my eyes.....nazz.
the trip.....paul murphy.
cash (money).....prince charles & the city beat band.
cool operator.....delroy wilson.
rushing to paradise (walkin' these streets).....house of house.
walkin' up a one-way street.....willie tee.
i'll follow you down.....slaughter joe.
patterns 1.....moritz von oswald trio.





thank you to alll the people who have left such kind words following the tragic death of my good friend jake brockman last week. i'm both amazed and touched by the warmth and love that has been shown my way, paticularly from people i don't really know. i'm very moved and consider it an honour to include you as my friends. x

sugar, spice, all things nice, rats, snails, puppy dog's tails. all mixed together with a dead dog's eye by bernie connor and the sikester. the bespoke audio people. x

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my good friend jake brockman has died in the course of his adventures. he was the most beautiful caring and optimistic person i ever met. people like jake gave us all hope, he lit up the world he was put on to live.


i first met jake in 1980, gary dwyer (the teardrop explodes drummer) and myself were tripping on acid and weedling our way round liverpool city centre looking for something to do. we eventually ended up in the zoo records office in chicago buildings, just around the corner from probe. inside we encountered the bills drummond and butt plus this pixie like thing with long straggly hair and a long straggly beard, decked out in an raf greatcoat and sitting on a table cross-legged. this turned out to be jake who cut a rather strange figure in liverpool in 1980 looking like that. realising instantly that me and daddio were tripping our tits off he picked up an acoustic guitar and began serenading us with these very wonderful made-up songs that defused a con fused and psychedelic situation.


that was the beginning of lifelong friendship with this most gentle, caring, loving soul on the planet. not long after his arrival in liverpool he became roadie, keyboard player and general factotum to echo & the bunnymen, completely indispensible and more a part of the band than thge musicians and the music they made. from this lofty position grew his friendship with pete de freitas, they took on the world as a psychedelic dangermouse and penfold, two poshers with a arrid thirst for life and all that could offer them. there's was a world of italian motorcycles, hand-made leather shoes and the finest marijuana avauilable to humans, every moment spent with them was like an eternity on planet whack. a knockabout series of high laughs, startling conversation and to be honest, a dazzling insight to how the other half lives.


enter whittaker.

their adoption of former deaf school drummer, tim whittaker as lysergic guru and artist in residence was a master-stroke. tim brought to the table an earthy lancashire witticism that was desperately needed to prevent them from becoming a modern day jeeves and wooster. this unholy trinity designed the course of my life in my early twenties; music, philosophy, fine art and the concept of the ever changing world were constantly hovering in the air around our heads and the explosion of thought that was contextualised for me by jake and put into a language we could all understand.

i never learned to do anything practical at all, when he used to live round the corner he did everything for me, putting up shelves, building the children's bunk-beds, hell i even called him once to ask him to change a lightbulb for me. he came and did it, of course he did, that's what sort of beautiful cat he was, nothing was ever too much. he dircted me over the phone on how to change a washer on the bathroom tap, when it was glaringly obvious that i was woefully inept at even that, he came round and did it himself. beautiful.

when pete died in 1989 and when tim died in 1996 jake was a lost but rock solid soul to cling to. he took it all in his stride and in his philosophical way he put our hearts and minds at ease. as i write this, i wish he was here to make us all feel a little more secure, we could certainly do with it. and right here, right now i can't believe that all three have gone, a chapter in liverpool's cultural history closed forever. hopefully in the otherworld somewhere the divine thunderbolt corps are rearing for their reunion gig. good luck, chaps.

i can't really think of anything more magnanimous to say, jake was a good friend, someone i thought would outlive us all by sheer beauty and determination. his spirit and his smiling face will live with me forever, i'm glad it'll never go away.

he really was a friend of mine and shall miss him for all time. and man, that feels bad.

my love goes out to his wife, sally and everybody who ever came into contact with him, their lives will be better for it.

love, man.x x x




this week: we lost our co-pilot, navigator and captain of the ship. all at once.


WE WILL NOT SHY AWAY FROM POP MUSIC.

be my baby.....vanessa paradis.
cloud nine.....mongo santamaria.
the missionary.....josef k.
part 2.....the gaslamp killer.
clara-bella.....the jodimars.
the race part one.....african head charge.
the roll off characteristics (of history in the making).....cornershop.
happy birthday.....spacelex.
the oogum boogum song.....brenton wood.
sweet and dandy.....the maytals.
if you're looking for a way out.....tindersticks.
the presence.....crispy ambulance.
techno dread.....2562.
borstal breakout.....sham 69.


put together with a heavy heart by bernie & sike. the bespoke audio people. x