Dusting down

Oh, what's in here, behind this pile of dust? Blimey! It looks like some sort of motor. It must have been pretty sleek once. I bet it gleamed and purred as it ran. A true relic of a bygone age! I wonder if I spent a little time cleaning it whether I could get any life out of it?
Do you know, I think it might just splutter into life again. Why not try to glide around the track a couple more times? What we need is to get it to turn over. There!
Now its flickered back to life things are beginning to move. Two items of news, arrive hot from Turn Up Towers.
Firstly, Echo Road, playing in disguise under the name of Pablo Alto, should be broadcast on the Andrew Marston show on BBC radio Hereford & Worcester at 7 pm on Friday 3rd June. I say 'should be' because we have already been moved once, but the recording is in the can. Frustratingly, we are yet to hear it as well.
Secondly, in conjunction with Martin Clark of Tilley Printing in Ledbury and Tinsmiths of Ledbury, I will be reading at the Talking Wall in Tinsmiths' yard as official events nos. 20 & 24 in Ledbury Poetry Festival. We hope to see a good turn out - indeed, good turns all round. Poster will be available for purchase by clientelle of discernment and wherewithal, and copies of all my books can be signed in your presence for a suitable transfer of ackers. Messages can even be personalised.
And so, we enter the era of hard sell and raw commerce!

Seasoning

Turn Up Towers above fog, which forms a miasmic pool at the feet of the groaning keep. The greater elevation provided by the situation on a hilltop helps the effect of course. Procrastination being my watchword, I noted that shortly we would move beyond the ripe and into the rot, and that this season I had completely skipped the raw. Inadvertence is a strange bedfellow! Her cousin, Miss Adventure, had even avoided collusion with the raw. I gaze out upon the specially-bred spindle-shanks dahlias, 12 feet tall this year, and admire their orange and red bomb-burst forms above the shifting shroud that hides the ground. They look like a black and white photograph, with one or two brilliantly-coloured highlights, like Ed Mustafic’s famous orange in an otherwise black and white bowl of fruit.

A mysterious call from Orville Quantock, long silent. The urgency in his rasping voice persuaded me to roll out the car and recklessly agree to collect him from a disused railway halt, long abandoned to weeds and the ghosts of weeds.

Mist almost amounting to fog the last two mornings, a deep, swirling, allegorical fog. The tide of the year is changing. Strange beasts become active at the edges of perception, in defiance of reason itself. The engine seems to stutter as I clatter in the old charabanc across the bridge that leads away from familiarity. The radio falls silent. I catch sudden sight of a phalanx of five leeches moving across the moistened surface of the passenger side window. Is it just my imagination that seizes upon the indescribable horror of their constantly moving mouths? What is it they say?

How Do You Skin A Cube?

I haven’t worked out yet why I should find this question disturbing. Perhaps the combination of words is in itself strangely unsettling. There is something sinister about the imagery involved, as if the mind is grappling with an alien consciousness.

Talking of which, it wasn’t a bad turnout for the Echo Road performance a few weeks ago. I don’t believe anyone went away feeling short-changed, and we managed to launch a few new songs into existence. What we now need is an evening gig or two.

I ought also to give a mention to Tessa Frith’s beautiful album, Mindscapes, which is simply stunning if you are in the mood for a clear female voice and supremely tasteful instrumentation. It’s introspective and suitable for those quieter, more reflective, moments of the day.

Annals of the Eerie Pt.3

"This odd new idea that all ideas, no matter how insane, merit equal consideration and that objective fact has ceased to exist."

Irrationality, eh? Surely we shouldn’t give it house room at all. However, I have noticed a strange relationship developing with my alarm clock. I suspect that, although it is an inanimate object, it has telepathic properties. Let me explain.

How often do I awake at night? I turn to the clock, which has an illuminated display which is activated by pressing the button on it’s top. I sometimes guess the time, and when I check more often than not it is within a minute or two of the display, quite frequently dead on. 2.22 is not likely to erupt into reality unless some rather odd mechanisms are at work.

Sometimes, the clock goes further, as if to show off it’s weirder abilities. Last night I had the pleasure of attending a Billy Whizz gig at the Retreat. They were on fine form as usual, as were the Film Extras before them. I saw a number of faces, chatted and smiled and nodded at words I could not hear. Then Billy Whizz re-appeared in my dreams. I call that overstepping the mark actually, but I can find it within myself to forgive. They were playing a magnificent song towards the end of their set which involved repeated chants of ‘Aubergine!’ ‘Aubergine!’ ‘Aubergine!’ ‘Aubergine!’ with a furious riff thundering away behind it. Suddenly, the power went and the song was left in mid air as it became clear that the police had pulled the plug. The band shrugged and started packing up.

Then, and this is the quirk that struck me, without missing a beat my alarm went off. The morning had arrived in a demonstration of alarm clock omnipotence, one that I shall not lightly forget. I was left to writhe in a confusing tangle of “wha happened?” and throbbing aubergine. The dream and the clock were obviously interwoven in some ninth-dimensional matrix somewhere beyond perception.

Is it really inanimate? It IS without the battery – let’s hope it’s sentient enough to remember that!

And, while we’re on the subject, I thought I might invite Rob Clark to guest edit an entry for the blog sometime to provide tips for the dashing man on techniques for ironing shirts. Anyone with half an ounce of fashion élan will be anxious to reproduce the even-ness of his crumple.

The Object

Menaced by a mystery object
That I could not define or explain
I thought that by changing the subject
I’d never have to face it again

Chorus:
And now I’ve defeated that object
But the victory was always in vain
Because by defeating the object
I’ve defeated the object again

You object whenever I say
We’ve fixed up a meeting tomorrow
But if I were to see you today
The future is passed by Time’s arrow

Chorus

Climbing to the peak is the object
Swinging upwards by hand over hand
But the point of the purpose the aspect
Where the skies kiss goodbye to the land

Bridge:
An object is a subject to some
And you’ve become an object of fun
An object is a subject to some
You’ll always be an object of fun

Chorus

Austerity Measures

Turn Up Towers is not a military outpost, susceptible to chains of command or other forms of restraint, but even here we are not immune to the mania of the age. It is peddled by the very to-do and arrives in a bundled suite known as ‘Austerity Measures’.

‘Austerity measures what?’ you might ask. So far as I can see it measures the distance across the moat that separates those who have from those who don’t and the depth of said waterway and multiplies the two to produce the ‘Co-efficient of Protection’.

I therefore instigated such a calculation at the Towers and have received the surprising information that our ‘Co-efficient of Protection’ is a minus figure of substantial dimension. I have thrown the dice in all sorts of startlingly original ways, even employing one or two tricks of the conjuring trade, but the result could not be fiddled with, or even strummed along to.

Which brings me to Roger and Bronwen’s barbecue. Hugely enjoyable, old faces, opportunity for a bit of pluck. I was joined by a guy called Neil who was good company and we managed to turn out seven or eight numbers. Throughout we were accompanied by Sophia and (I believe) her elder sister who danced their little legs off, aged from guesswork 4 and about 8. Good times.

And not to forget the approach of Echo Road’s performance next Saturday at 2 pm at Ice Bytes. I am aware that vast swathes of our potential audience will be off on holiday (rather a rush on late bookings I think), so you should be able to get in through the crush.

Audience

And now, folks, calm your excitement! Echo Road will be playing at Ice Bytes cafe at the Homend in Ledbury on Saturday 28th August 2010 at 2 pm. We’ll play for about an hour and a half. We have a number of new originals to play, together with a few new covers. And we’ll be playing again some of the stuff you may already have heard. We’d love to see you there if you can make it, as it’s always better to have an audience. And you can indulge in coffee, ice cream and all that cafe sort of stuff. Entry is free, so I hope you'll support John and Shoko by indulging yourselves in outrageous gluttony. Feel free to rustle your shopping in appreciation of the music when the mood sweeps over you.