I went to one of his gigs once .
. bloody miles away . . . and he never turned up.
The National Trust of all people
have commissioned a poem from him; it’s called ‘Thats where the sea comes in…’
A big fat sky and a thousand
shrieks / The tide arrives and the timber creaks
A world away from the working week / Ou est la vie
nautique?
That’s where the sea comes in…
Dishevelled shells and
shovelled sands, / Architecture all unplanned
A spade n bucket wonderland / A golden space, a
Frisbee and
The kids and dogs can run and run / And not run in to
anyone
Way out! Real gone! / That’s where the sea comes in
Impervious to human
speech, idle time and tidal reach / Some memories you can’t impeach
That’s where the sea comes in / A nice cuppa splosh
and a round of toast
A cursory glance at the morning post / A pointless
walk along the coast
That’s what floats my boat the most / That’s where the
sea comes in…
That’s where the sea comes in
Don’t know how they got hold of
him because famously, he doesn’t have a phone or own a computer.
My favourite John Cooper Clarke
poem is Fitness Fanatic. The version I have is on an ancient tape from one of
John Peel’s Radio 1 shows. You can see it here on you-tube however:
they call it Health Fanatic.
Been reading two books about
music both of which are recommended.
AMERICA OVER THE WATER by Shirley
Collins is an autobiography written by English folk singer, Shirley Collins.
Never heard of her? Most people familiar with English folk music, Carthy, Nic
Jones, Steeleye, June Tabor or Richard Thompson will know her name but may not
know her work. So, if you haven’t been immersed in English folk, you may not
have heard of her. I’m not sure how old she is seventy-plus I would think. She was
one of the singers in Ashley Hutchings Albion Band. Checks on Google: no, she
was born in 1935 so she is eighty. Anyway, she wrote this biography about her
travels in America’s deep south in 1959-60 with collector and academic, Alan
Lomax.
What was happening in American music
in 1960? Itsy Bitsy Teeny Weeny Polka Dot
Bikini was top of the Billboard 100 and the great, the great Barrett Strong
had seen his single Money get to
number six on the R&B Chart; it’s on Anna but most people regard it as the
first Tamla-Motown single. Gil Evans was collaborating with Miles.
The book is never going to win
the Booker but she has a compelling story to tell and for anyone even mildly
interested in authentic American roots music, honestly it’s a must-read. They
meet country blues singers, gospel choirs, banjo maestro’s, preachers , shape-note
singers and they record them all. She seems to be more than a little in love
with Alan, at that time a married man with a family, some twenty years older
than herself but it’s the music and the down-home deep south traditional people
they meet along the way that makes this great. Sometimes it’s pretty scary, at
one point they are told about a community of fanatics who keep rattlesnakes in
their homes. Sometimes it is a little like Deliverance
and by the end you can see she is desperate to get home to Brighton. Strong
recommend; even if you only read about the man that walks out of the forest you
will be thrilled.
EMINENT HIPSTERS by Donald Fagen
not an autobiography exactly but more a selection of reminisces, this book is written
by the lead singer/front man of Steely Dan, Donald Fagen. Born in New Jersey in 1947,
Jewish [I didn’t realise] he seems to have gravitated to jazz very much
against the grain. The grain being Itsy
Bitsy Teeny Weeny Polka Dot Bikini and
Money. Even as a young teenager, he
finds himself the only white youth in the New York jazz clubs and he seems to
have been present at many of the great gigs; he saw Miles Davis, Sonny Rollins,
Coltrane and Mingus when they were still discovering themselves. His mother
seems to have been the influence here and his chapter on the Boswell Sisters of
whom I had only vaguely heard is one of the best essays in the book.
This is the nature of the
writing: a series of essays on subjects that have interested or influenced him.
Sci-fi books and magazines; jazz; television programmes that are meaningless to
me because I wasn’t around in fifties America. Cars; the usual. You can see
where the lyrics and chords of My Old
School came from. It’s completely different to the closely detailed writing
of Knausggaard that I blogged about a few weeks ago. He doesn’t attempt to
examine his younger self or his friends and feelings. If his father almost
twisted his ear off, he isn’t going to address the issue now. On the other hand,
he is sixty-eight . . . maybe he doesn’t
remember.
If you are interested in this
period of American music or how these major players became the original
musicians they seemed to be at the time, then give it a go. It helps if you
actually like Steely Dan because he is a little acerbic and as a reader I found
myself frequently giving him a lot of latitude. Fortunately, I am a fan so it
was an interesting read for me although his American hipster vernacular [‘I
don’t want to be no jive turkey’ – eek!]became hard to take after a bit.
Quick postscript: I saw them live
once; got the Steely Dan t-shirt to prove it.
Quick postscript: the cover of my
copy has the genuflecting, This book is a
piece of pure bliss – GUARDIAN
on the cover which is absolutely hilarious since as everyone knows, the
Guardian music department notoriously loathes and detests Steel Dan and all
their works. Obviously the books department doesn’t talk to the music
department.
This is a nice recipe for cooking
salmon:
You will need:
About 15oz cooked salmon, flaked
4 tbsp fresh parsley
4 spring onions
Fresh breadcrumbs [about two
cupfuls]
2 eggs
2 tbsp melted butter
2 tbsp mayonnaise
1 tsp dried mustard
2 tsp lemon juice
Salt & pepper
Maybe six tbsp vegetable oil for
sautéing
Over the years, I have tried
different quantities of all these ingredients; I’ve tried it with vegetable oil
instead of butter and I have tried bulking it up with a mashed potatobut these
are the quantities and ingredients that work.
METHOD: Mix everything together
except save half the breadcrumbs. Leave for half an hour minimum, ideally in
the fridge. You can be getting on with the sauce while it is resting. Then remove
from fridge and make them into individual fish cakes, dip them into the
remaining breadcrumbs and fry each side for around 5-minutes.
Place in the oven to keep warm.
Serve with tomato sauce, recipe below:
SAUCE:
You will need:
3 garlic cloves, crushed
1 onion, chopped
Tin tomatoes
Bay leaf
Salt & pepper
2 tbsp olive oil
1 heaped tbsp pesto [red or green,
doesn’t matter]
Heat oil, cook onion and garlic
then add remainder of ingredients. You need to let it cook down for say twenty
minutes before serving. Over the years, I have varied this recipe by adding red
peppers, a celery stalk and or a courgette to the sauce but that may not work
for you.
Serves 4.
