I KNOW, I KNOW, I KNOW . . . I KNOW

This is from an on-line magazine called The Immortal Jukebox, written by Barbara Schultz.

There’s the fascinating story of Wally Heider’s studio which is basically an interview with the great engineer Bill Halverson, whose credits at that point included Crosby Stills and Nash’s massive self-titled debut album, Cream’s Badge, Tom Jones Sings She’s a Lady and CSNY’s Déjà Vu.

This is what he says about Bill Withers before he became famous: ’Withers was eventually signed to Sussex Records, and  Booker T. Jones was enlisted to produce the new artist’s debut album, Just as I Am in 1971. Also on the session were two members of the MGs . . . drummer Al Jackson and bass player Donald Duck Dunn . . . plus singer songwriter Stephen Stills on guitar. The recordings were made in Wally Heider’s Studio 3, then situated in L.A. at the corner of Cahuenga and Selma.  We had difficulty finding studio time and just spent the one night recording. 

On Withers’ session, Halverson placed Jackson’s kit near the control room glass, under an overhanging soffit that held the studio playback speakers. ‘If you tucked the drums as close as you could under that overhang of the big speakers, you were out in the room but you had really good isolation,’ Halverson says.

‘When Bill Withers showed up he comes walking in with his guitar and a straight-back chair, like a dining room chair, and asks, ‘Where do I set up?’ I showed him right in the middle of the room, and then he left and he came back in with this platform, a kind of wooden box that didn’t have a bottom. It was about four inches tall, and was maybe 3 foot by 4 foot; it was a fairly large platform, and he set it down in the middle of the room. Then he put his chair on it and got his guitar out, and he’s sitting on top of this box. So I miked him and I miked his guitar, and then I was doing other things . . . getting sounds together. But then he calls me over and he points down to the box and says, ‘You gotta mike the box.’ Well, the way I was trained, you serve the artist, whatever the artist needs. So I got a couple other mics and I miked the box, the place down near the floor, next to this platform.

‘And now, when you listen to Ain’t No Sunshine, you know that all that tapping that goes on [while Withers sings] ‘I know I know I know’ all through it, actually, that’s him tapping his feet on the box, which is actually more intricate than the guitar on that track. He had evidently rehearsed that in his living room, maybe for years.’

You can listen to it here:

This little article borrowed without permission from the Colyer blog.

MY BROTHER

This is  a picture of my brother taken in South-western France yesterday, on his birthday.

BLAIR

Here is Dr David Kelly's article, written days before the Iraq war, in which he assessed the threat from Saddam:

In the past week, Iraq has begun destroying its stock of al-Samoud II missiles, missiles that have a range greater than the UN-mandated limit of 150 kilometres. This is presented to the international community as evidence of President Saddam Hussein's compliance with United Nations weapons inspectors.

But Iraq always gave up materials once it was in its interest to do so. Iraq has spent the past 30 years building up an arsenal of weapons of mass destruction (WMD). Although the current threat presented by Iraq militarily is modest, both in terms of conventional and unconventional weapons, it has never given up its intent to develop and stockpile such weapons for both military and terrorist use.

Today Iraq shows superficial co-operation with the inspectorates. Weapons such as 122mm rockets specific for chemical and biological use have been discovered and the destruction of proscribed missiles and associated engines, components and gyroscopes has begun.

Iraq has established two commissions to search for documents and weapons under the direction of Rashid Amer, a former head of Iraq's concealment activities, and a commission has started to recover weapons from Iraq's unilateral destruction sites. [These sites, dating back to 1991, were destroyed by Iraq, illegally, without UN supervision and as part of Iraq's concealment of programmes]. Amer al-Saadi - formerly responsible for conserving Iraq's WMD, now its principal spokesman on its weapons - continues to mislead the international community.

It is difficult to imagine co-operation being properly established unless credible Iraqi officials are put into place by a changed Saddam.

Yet some argue that inspections are working and that more time is required; that increasing the numbers of inspectors would enhance their effectiveness. Others argue that the process is inherently flawed and that disarmament by regime change is the only realistic way forward.

The UN has been attempting to disarm Iraq ever since 1991 and has failed to do so. It is an abject failure of diplomacy with the split between France, China and Russia on the one hand, and Britain and the United States on the other, creating a lack of 'permanent five' unity and resolve. More recently Germany, a temporary yet powerful member of the Security Council, has exacerbated the diplomatic split. The threat of credible military force has forced Saddam Hussein to admit, but not co-operate with, the UN inspectorate. So-called concessions - U2 overflights, the right to interview - were all routine between 1991 and 1998. After 12 unsuccessful years of UN supervision of disarmament, military force regrettably appears to be the only way of finally and conclusively disarming Iraq.

In the years since 1991, during which Unscom and the International Atomic Energy Authority (IAEA) destroyed or rendered harmless all known weapons and capability under UN Security Council Resolution 687, Iraq established an effective concealment and deception organisation which protected many undisclosed assets. In October 2002, Resolution 1441 gave Saddam Hussein an ultimatum to disclose his arsenal within 30 days. He admitted inspectors and, with characteristic guile, provided some concessions, but still refuses to acknowledge the extent of his chemical and biological weapons and associated military and industrial support organisations - 8,500 litres of anthrax VX, 2,160 kilograms of bacterial growth media, 360 tonnes of bulk chemical warfare agent, 6,500 chemical bombs and 30,000 munitions capable of delivering chemical and biological warfare agents remained unaccounted for from activities up to 1991. [Even these figures, it should be noted, are based in no small part on data fabricated by Iraq].

Less easy to determine is the extent of activity undertaken since 1991. In its 12,000-page 'disclosure' submitted to the inspectors in December 2002, Iraq failed to declare any proscribed activities. Today the truly important issues are declaring the extent and scope of the programmes in 1991 and the personalities, 'committees' and organisations involved.

There are indications that the programmes continue.

Iraq continues to develop missile technology, especially fuel propellents and guidance systems for long-range missiles. Iraq has recovered chemical reactors destroyed prior to 1998 for allegedly civilian activity, built biological fermenters and agent dryers, and created transportable production units for biological and chemical agents and the filling of weapons. Key nuclear research and design teams remain in place, even though it is assessed that Iraq is unable to manufacture nuclear weapons unless fissile material is available.

War may now be inevitable. The proportionality and intensity of the conflict will depend on whether regime change or disarmament is the true objective. The US, and whoever willingly assists it, should ensure that the force, strength and strategy used is appropriate to the modest threat that Iraq now poses.

Since some WMD sites have not been unambiguously identified, and may not be neutralised until war is over, a substantial hazard may be encountered. Sites with manufacturing or storage capabilities for chemical or biological weapons may present a danger and much will depend on the way that those facilities are militarily cancelled and subsequently treated.

Some of the chemical and biological weapons deployed in 1991 are still available, albeit on a reduced scale. Aerial bombs and rockets are readily available to be filled with sarin, VX and mustard or botulinum toxin, anthrax spores and smallpox. More sophisticated weaponry, such as spray devices associated with drones or missiles with separating warheads, may be limited in numbers, but would be far more devastating if used.

The threat from Iraq's chemical and biological weapons is, however, unlikely to substantially affect the operational capabilities of US and British troops. Nor is it likely to create massive casualties in adjacent countries. Perhaps the real threat from Iraq today comes from covert use of such weapons against troops or by terrorists against civilian targets worldwide. The link with al-Qaeda is disputed, but is, in any case, not the principal terrorist link of concern. Iraq has long trained and supported terrorist activities and is quite capable of initiating such activity using its security services.

The long-term threat, however, remains Iraq's development to military maturity of weapons of mass destruction - something that only regime change will avert.

RECENT READS

THE PRIVATE SECTOR [By Joseph Hone]. This is a spy story, just cant remember what possessed me to buy it. It was published in 1971 so it must have been written around the mid/late sixties. There is one five-star review for it on Amazon by someone who obviously really loves it. It is part of a new series from Faber re-publishing what they consider to be overlooked classics; the cover blurb compares it favourably to people like Eric Ambler, Graham Greene and other British, gritty spy story writers [not the dirty old man; LeCarre came later]. Goodreads reviewers aren’t so obliging with several complaining about the amount of unnecessary backstory which results in a loss of pace.

It is clunky in places. His favourite word is like. Everything has to be like something else; maybe that’s how they wrote in the mid-sixties. Perhaps that was what editors and publishers considered ‘good writing’, so you get sentence after sentence like this one:

‘. . . he spaced the words out quietly and very precisely, like a nanny giving a last warning . . .’

And here:

‘. . . but what shall we do - what plans do they have?’ She went on, like a traveller stuck in a midland junction on a winter Sunday morning; upset but still confident’.

Wears thin.

The story is set in Egypt, just before the six-day war and concerns two British spies one of whom is a Russian double-agent; spy number one is sent out to Cairo to find him and eliminate him. They are quite good characters but the great character is the woman, Bridget with whom they are both in love. She is a fantastic creation: so nuanced and real that she just must be based on a real person. Hone himself lived and worked in Egypt around this time so perhaps she is based on someone he knew.

Am I recommending this? Possibly. It is dense and by and large I like dense as long as it is going somewhere and the characters are three-dimensional and the situation believable. There is some terrific writing in there, however. Try this:

And the revolution had come; others had brought it, sought death for it, defined it . . . you were buying stamps in the General Post Office at the time. Never mind. It was just what you always talked about in the village café, it had come to pass exactly as you had said . . . it was yours, your number had come up at last. You were out in the streets for the rest of the week, you yelled more than anybody and looted a little. And later you bought a jacket to go with the trousers and had a word in someone’s ear . . .  a friend of your uncles who had actually been seen with a stick in his hand on the first day.

Now the ranks had closed again after the whirlwind, you met the fixers again, the ones you’d rallied against in the village, only they wore suits now . . .

More of that please and you might have written an all-time classic.

THE BOOK OF STRANGE NEW THINGS [By Michel Faber]. This is a tour de force. Fantastic book. Honestly, a masterpiece. I can’t understand why it didn’t win the Booker that year maybe because he is Dutch by birth. Shoulda bent the rules.

Faber is the guy who wrote Under The Skin which I haven’t read but thought the film was the best thing I had seen in years. This is equally if not more imaginative. It’s an unlikely tale about a Christian priest who is sent from England to a base on a remote planet in another galaxy to provide Christian guidance to the aliens, the Oasins. USIC, a multi-national corporation have a base there the purpose of which is unclear.  

So those are the basic ingredients but also in the mix is his wife, left behind to cope on her own with drastic climate change, civil unrest and dislocation; they have never been separated before and both find the separation unbelievably stressful. Him because he is unable to communicate his daily concerns which seem trivial to her when set against the earthquakes and tsunamis that she is experiencing. Her because she has to cope on her own. As the narrative unfolds, they become increasingly alienated from one another.

It is such a bold concept and in a lesser writers hands might have just been added to the pile of science-fiction novels started but never finished but Faber meticulously adds layers of detail which utterly and completely bring this world and this situation, of separation powerfully and realistically to near-believability.

Jeez I loved this book. But, but there are one and two-star reviews on Amazon. Incredible. I think they wanted a different book, not the one Faber has actually written.

SIGHTLINES [By Kathleen Jamie]. Another masterpiece. That’s two in a row. This is how it’s done, Virginia Baily and Patrick Gale.

Kathleen Jamie is a Scottish poet and this is a collection of short stories about the natural world. Her interests are much the same as mine: geography and the movement of people; wild creatures; archaeology and how the land was formed. She writes well. I am not a great collector of fine description but even I have to acknowledge her skills in bringing a scene to life. It’s a gift. Try this:

They are on Shetland at the top of a 500ft cliff watching Gannets swoop and dive.

. . . and picked up the binoculars again, but this time turned away from the cliff with all its squalor and dramas and looked instead down at the sea below. There were yet more gannets  down there. A club of juveniles occupied a flat terrace of rock at the cliff-foot, twenty or so birds in mottled plumage who had come back from their early wanderings, summoned by that breeding instinct. Out on the water, before the waves broke, were more adults, a raft of them riding up and down on the slight swell. The binoculars framed three or four at a time. Each white breast caught the sunshine and against that white the water appeared an impenetrable dark blue.

There was no particular reason to look there , except that it was restful. The birds maybe found it restful too, compared to the colony. Perhaps they were just stealing a little time before heading back into the fray.

Just then though I began to realise that there was something in my field of vision that hadn’t been there before. It was as though someone had leaned over my shoulder and drawn, among the resting birds, a quick vertical line with a pencil. That’s all. A quick line. I thought it was perhaps a mirage, a trick of the light . . . it was a bit wavery. Or just a creel marker that had lost its flag. But it didn’t bob like a creel marker.

It was probably nothing, so I said nothing but kept looking. That’s what the keen-eyed naturalists  say. Keep looking, even when there’s nothing much to see. That way your eye learns what’s common, so when the uncommon appears, your eye will tell you.  

I was curious now, and concentrating. I could feel the moments unfold. It was surely growing taller, this dark line. Then two of the birds began to flap their wings, ready to take off. They’d been disturbed . Something was happening underneath the water’s surface. The birds lumbered into the air, and at that moment the black line turned into a profile, and I realised what it was.   

Yes it was a killer whale.