Learning The McCookerybook And Rotifer Songs

We have our first two ever gigs coming up at the end of November, and it seems sensible to start learning the twelve songs in our repertoire, especially since a lot of them have alien chords to learn, and (even more challengingly) lyrics in the German language. Little and often is the prescription. Chords first, lyrics later. If I can get my body to deal with the music, my head can follow on with the lyrics. I hope.

I had an unexpected conversation with a blues guitarist on Monday morning, which was such a cheering thing to do. Guitar nerds aren't usually on patrol on Monday mornings! He's going to come in and talk to the music students, and they are going to love him. On Thursday, an ex-student who now manages vinyl output for a major label is coming in, and last week I spent 150% of my time scurrying around trying to find a room to teach them all in. Now I think I have, but I won't be able to relax until the lecture is over, when I will deflate with relief like a balloon at a children's party.

On Monday afternoon, I played the songwriting students a selection of political songs, all the way from Billie Holliday through Woody Guthrie, Marvin Gaye, The Specials, X-Ray Spex to Pussy Riot and beyond, finishing with the Tokyo Complaints Choir, who always go down a treat, and shine a light of sunny happiness on drab Monday afternoons. I have to introduce them to Lord Kitchener, Pete Seeger, The Last Poets, Linton Kwesi Johnson, and Charlie Gillet's book The Sound of the City which is possibly out of print. There is so much they haven't heard!

The Milk Bottle Depot

Back in the 1980s, when you rounded the corner on the top deck of a Number 36 bus at Vauxhall, you were rewarded by a glimpse into the milk bottle depot where tight queues of clean milk bottles wobbled on a conveyor, past the industrial-glazed windows on their way back into circulation. For some reason, this was a mysterious and oddly romantic sight. The lines of bottles seemed to be heading on a longer-than-necessary journey, backwards and forwards, through gleaming chrome machinery that was curiously complex. And they were clean: so sparkling clean! The glass positively twinkled under the fluorescent ceiling tubes, the contours of their lips etched out sharply in gleaming light. Oddly, you never saw a human being. It was as though the bottles had found their way there independently and lined up patiently, having made the decision themselves to be recycled. I think this was the most riveting thing of all.

From Drawing Club Yesterday

Yesterday I carried on the Children's TV theme with a drawing of Belle and Sebastian, that black and white children's programme from France, and then revisited the Delft tile idea (watch this space) by drawing a Delft punk throwing a bit of a wobbler.

Being A Darkroom Technician

After I left school, I had a temporary job at the RVI hospital in Newcastle as a darkroom technician. I spent my days in a large cupboard with a dim red light. There were smaller two-way cupboards set into the walls. A radiographer would put an exposed X-Ray film into one from the wall outside the darkroom, and bang on the cupboard door when they had closed it. That was your signal to open the internal door, take out the cassette with the film in it, and feed it into the developing machine, which would then spew it out into a room next door to be collected and taken to the radiologist for diagnosis.

I've written before about reading Mills and Boon paperbacks that had been left there by a previous technician: it was just light enough in there to decipher the text. Waiting between films was desperately boring and even Mills and Boon was better than nothing.

Occasionally we'd mix massive plastic tanks of developer and fixer, bending the stinky chemicals with water to the correct concentration. In other parts of the department there were rooms where we'd have to develop and fix the X-Rays manually, which was daunting. X-Rayed teeth (occlusal) were processed this way and I remember seeing tiny grey and white films clipped into chrome frames having in the tank of fixed waiting for diagnosis.

The colonoscopy area was disturbing. Woozy drugged people in hospital gowns were wheeled in and out of the camera rooms, and often their prognosis was not good. One day I saw blood in my stools and was horrified. I went into work the next day and whispered my fears to one of my workmates. 'Ha ha!', she laughed. 'What did you eat last night?'. Lots of tomatoes. Yes, it was par for the course to self-diagnose with dreadful bowel complaints when you worked in that part of the department. 

There were workplace romances: one of the surgeons was regarded as particularly desirable, and I had the impression that he was taking his pick from the lovely young radiographers in their starched white uniforms. The radiographers were fun. One fo them couldn't afford to go on holiday so she found a French radio station on her transistor radio and sat sunbathing in her mum and dad's back garden for her two weeks off, pretending that she was in the south of France. 

We all had to wear little rectangles of X-Ray film pinned on to the skirt part of our overalls to make sure we weren't getting over-exposed to radiation. The Radiographers had heavy rubber aprons that they put on when they were posing a patient, and we had to stand back from the doors when the machine was in operation, just in case..

One of the radiographers had a father who was a jeweller, and one day he secretly came in and pierced everyone's ears at a reduced rate. There was a heatwave that summer and I remember walking through Marks and Spencers to get the train home (it was the only air conditioned shop in Newcastle), and gingerly touching my tender ears. What a strange sensation it was, metal and skin! I don't think McMum was delighted when I got back home.

The X-Ray department was a world of its own. Apparently a senior radiologist had allowed a vet to bring in an anaesthetised pig one weekend; and  I bought a length of tweed from a salesman who turned up in our rest room one day (and later sold it to one of King Kurt's guitarists to have a suit made, because I couldn't find anyone in Newcastle to adapt a tailor-made man's suit so I could have one made for myself). I earned enough money to get my hair cut, but it looked awful. Thankfully, it all grew again.

Such hot weather, baking in the dark in a tiny room deep in the heart of the Royal Victoria Infirmary for a whole young summer. Isn't it funny where life takes you?

24 Hours

I had the strange experience yesterday of being tagged in a Twitter post by a record label that is releasing a version of 24 Hours by The Chefs. Last week sometime, I had inadvertently 'liked' a similar post in passing, thinking at was a radio show but actually it's a reissue label that seems to have got hold of several people's tracks (including one by the Monochrome Set), without them knowing anything about it, and who plan to release them all next year.

Their Twitter followers are really excited, and one admonished me as though I was being churlish for noting that I didn't know anything about it.

Think about this: if you had been in a band that made very little money despite being professional for years, how would you feel if the songs that you had spent months writing, rehearsing, playing and recording were completely detached from you, and people were allowed to repackage and sell them, alongside merchandise that they have created themselves, and pay you nothing, without even asking if that was OK? Somewhere out of sight, a bunch of businessmen have exchanged contracts, shaken hands, had a beer and gone back to their huge houses in Surrey or Islington or wherever (and you can bet your bottom dollar they vote Labour), patting themselves on the back. And the people who will buy the records (known as 'the market' buying 'units') will feel as though they are interacting with the artist by buying another record for their collection.

Quite possibly some of the bands and artists don't mind, and in fact are delighted to be remembered. I am completely aware that I am not famous, and should also probably be feeling incredibly grateful for all the attention. I don't- I just feel as exploited as I always used to until becoming completely independent and DIY, or at least as much that as one possibly can be. 

Have you ever tried to buy a loaf of bread and offered to pay with gratitude? 

Or a bag of tomatoes and offered to pay with self-importance?

Terminus Two, One Through

There was a new Central Line tube station being tried out, and I'd ended up there on my way to Stratford. We'd all had to get off and change and people were grumbling. At first I thought I'd mistakenly got a train in the wrong direction, but I hadn't. The station was semi-open to daylight, with distressed pink brick walls that had once belonged to a factory or warehouse of some sort. We drifted towards the other platforms, all on a level: our through train had gone back where it came from, and the other two platforms were terminals; another train would be along soon. 

Sure enough, one turned up, driven by an excited trainee with their instructor in the cab beside them. There were other trainees crammed into the confined space, and as he drew the train up to the end of the platform, he bumped into it. I kind of knew that was going to happen, and I burst out laughing, and so did the other trainees, their hands over their mouths so they instructor couldn't see their glee. 

I started to explore a bit. There was a tabby cat sitting between the rails on the third line. The end of its tail was missing and I advised it to move, because it would lose more than just its tail if it stayed where it was.

What was the name of this station? High up on the wall were painted four words in old-fashioned capital letters: 'St .... .... Manor' or something like that. The paint had worn off and you couldn't read it properly. The back of the station had obviously been a wine bar at some time, and I walked through to the ticket hall. There, there was a waiting room with chairs with walls of emerald green. They were covered with paintings in gold frames, but in close inspection the 'paintings' were cheap and garish prints.

I started taking photographs and filming. Nobody was going to believe this; the other passengers had disappeared on to a train that had drawn in while I was exploring. On my phone screen Dad appeared, smiling and laughing. At that point, I knew it was a dream because he died more than ten years ago. 

I woke up.

Weird Day

What a weird day. On one side of it, so much stress has landed in my life that it's seemingly impossible to be able to move forward. On the other, the stress has resulted in an afternoon of dogged editing (removing the sound 'K' from numerous vocal takes in order to tidy up a song, and re-doing a guitar groove in tiny fragments in order to fit it into the drift from the metronome that gives the song a lovely feel). 

I have also put down a demo for a new song, which I forced myself to finish just because of the medicinal effect of making music. The song is about a Little Egret I saw down in Dollis Valley one morning early when no-one was about. It was a chilly and rather hostile morning in the summer: the dog walkers were obviously having a second cup of tea, and the cocaine-buying joggers were probably shuddering under the covers, and giving it a miss for the day. 

The treatment worked, but I'm very tired, having been pulled between these two poles, the creative north and the cruel south.

A long time ago, Lester Square told me about an Army musician he knew who had a mental breakdown because he couldn't cope with the schizophrenic act of being a creator and a killer rolled into one person's psyche. I'm not in the Army, obviously,  but sometimes I do fail to understand the license granted to those who are allowed to pontificate about one thing, while practicing an entirely different scheme.

I need to get over myself. I have just found out that Pat Fish (the Jazz Butcher) has died. Pat was a total gentleman, and had just completed an album with Dave Morgan and Ruth Tidmarsh. He was in the middle of gigging, due to play in Bristol this week. This is terribly sad news.

Looking For Lost Lyrics

The past couple of days have been spent looking for lyrics that I scribbled down somewhere in a fit of inspiration. More lyrics always come along, but it's still awful when you mislay them. Writing songs is just about the closest you can get to taking a snapshot of your soul; self knowledge is so elusive, and like drawing or painting, laying out these things outside your sense of who you are offloads a lot of tension and anxiety. You can see, or hear, exactly who you were on a particular day at a particular time in a particular place, feeling particular feelings.

They were irritating lyrics because they didn't fit properly into the music they landed on, but at the same time they described perfectly a tiny morsel of time and experience that had been so difficult to capture.

I have just found them at the bottom of a pile of books. I had been able to visualise where they were on a page and sure enough there they were, following on from a much more nuts'n'bolts set of instructions about how I am going to mix a track that I have been recording.

The fact is that every cloud has a silver lining, and because I couldn't find the lyrics, I started writing another song so I had something to work on. The other song is much easier: it's one of those songs that began as a dream where I was at a concert and heard someone singing it. My friend Amy used to do this too: hearing a song on the radio in her dream and realising it was actually her own. Soon, you learn to sing the song into a recording device as soon as you wake up. Once you've done that, all you need to do is write the rest of it, which comes along pretty quickly.

The two new songs are going to jostle for attention for a while. It doesn't much matter which one wins; lyrically they are interconnected because they are both about nature. One is melancholy, the other is a celebration, two faces of the natural environment.

Peace

The largest social media company went offline yesterday, and gave those of us who use it a well-deserved rest. I was half hoping that it had gone for good. This morning I read that businesses depend on it, and in some respects the semi-professional part of the music work that I'm involved in also depends on it. Nonetheless, it was great to have a break from it. The real world suddenly went up a couple of notches in interestingness and excitingness, and I thought just how lucky those people are who have never engaged with it at all. 

I'm going to try to take a day a week off from it and see if I can. It's become a habit to check it regularly throughout the day, but it's not an essential service, is it?

No Words by Alex Swarbrick

The poem No Words was written by Alex Swarbrick. I wrote some music and made it into a song for her.

https://soundcloud.com/mccookerybook/no-words

Sunday Drawing Club: Crackerjack

Yesterday's theme was children's TV shows of yesteryear, and I had a very pleasant hour or so in the afternoon looking through old TV shows to find suitable stills to draw from. I chose this one to work on, all my resolutions to draw in black and white, and to do more than one drawing during the session, going out of the window as the banter flowed. This was actually a particularly weird episode of Crackerjack: the very reluctant-looking boys had to roll around on the floor until the balloons burst, and the first boy to burst all the balloons won the competition. I noticed that all the Crackerjack competitions involved humiliating the children in some way, and from the expression on these boys' faces, they were aware that they were just about to be mocked on live TV. It almost seems as though they were sent to the show by their school (they are in uniform) as an alternative to being caned. The challenge of drawing the balloons was really enjoyable, but now I'm worried that the boys were scarred for life by the experience. I wonder where they are now?

The Irrepressibles: Boy In The Lake

I'm just about to teach song writing this afternoon. So many wonderful musicians have passed through the courses that I teach on and here is one of them, Jamie McDermott.

Mama Used To Say

I'm going to learn this for the next Mr Unswitchable online covers night. Challenging, eh? It's got so much melody in the backing track that it's going to be fun working out how to do it on a Spanish guitar. I do love this song so much- there was a lot of good urban soul made by young people around that time: Southern Freez and all that. I think this was the best.

How To Watch Less TV: Broadcast More Johnson

With Thatcher, I had to merely turn the sound down. With Johnson, the TV gets turned off completely. It's a complete waste of time listening to a priapic self-promoter whose every word is a lie. I am hoping for an early implosion of the Tory party, but that feels a bit like continuing to believe in the Tooth Fairy when you're an adult. While the Conservative press dominates the way people think, they will remain in power in perpetuity. Living in a Tory suburb, I can see with my own eyes their sense of entitlement and power has not been shaken by anything at all, no matter what has happened. It's almost as if people will still continue to praise them with their last dying gasp. It's called 'Not wanting to be proved wrong', and it's a remarkably resilient and widespread phenomenon.

BTW this is a suburb where the woman volunteer in the local Oxfam shop went into an anti-refugee tirade with one of her customers without any apparent awareness of what she was saying, and where the manager of Rymans (a woman) said to a customer 'That Sadiq Khan ought to be shot'. Head office said they'd deal with her, but she's still there. 

All the talk of a this being a gentler era and a sense of community post-Covid stops short at the the borders between Barnet and its more tolerant neighbours.

Manufacturing of Plastic Waste

Definitely not here today, gone tomorrow. From TK Maxx in Stratford: plastic cosmetics bags getting it wrong in a big way.

BTW the nicest, most polite and respectful shop staff on the planet, seriously. The assistant manager Mohamed spent almost an hour on the phone getting a refund as compensation for a damaged package that was never delivered, and when I went back I witnessed another manager being incredibly tactful and kind to a man who was desperate for a job and who needed to bring in a new CV.