GHOST IN THE RADIO:

There’s a cartoon sky over Essex this morning, Simpson clouds
like sheep grazing liquid pink meadows. A frost & a cliche of
gradient blues as trees recede to distant fields. Last night I found a
room of beautiful crazies. Candle-lit misfits, the total weight of
who’s misdemeanours could sink ships. The kindness & kinship
brought smiles to faces, relief & a light in the eyes. No substitute
it seems for understanding & the willingness to change through
the power of example & love.

The radio hissed when I started the car, it found a station I never
asked it for. A direct connection to the 1960’s complete with
Radio Luxembourg phasing, the Beach Boys at the height of
their powers singing ‘I Get Around’ opened a tunnel back to a boy
traveling in his Dad’s car at night. The thrill of those harmonies,
the heartbreak of those changes & twists –
“…We always take my car ’cause it’s never bin beat…”.
The radio clicked to another station like a scene from the Twilight Zone.
1969, soon to be the 70’s, me & Mark Howells the first drummer listening
to his Zeppelin albums. That muted attack of Page’s guitar sound, raw &
superior to everything else around. Crude & assured, pumping out’ve
my little mono record player in the dark. A hole opened up into a car
driving at night through the backwoods of Essex – still feeling the thrill.

(K)

THERE’S LIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF IT:

A day that started like a drive by a long slag heap at dawn.
Grey light breaking through black cloud that touched the ground,
heavy with rain. Cartoon demons with zig-zag mouths live beneath
the slag that glistens like leviathans backs rising out’ve filthy rivers.
Imagining I’m sat in the sun at a california intersection I count cars,
noting their exotic colours. A phone call from Australia reminds me
to be grateful for winter as temperatures at the other end of the line
reach 90 degrees. In the studio it’s the same season all year round,
only the music changes. Today I start before breakfast with ‘Blissard’
by Motorpsycho

(K)

ON THE STREETS OF SOHO:

I followed the man in the tan coat & matching shoes in the rain
through the streets of Soho. It was clear from the way they were
polished those shoes were important. He looked like a man who
refused to carry umbrellas in town, styling out the weather.
At the door to the private members club he pressed the buzzer &
let the door go in my face as we entered.
Back in the 90’s
this place had been one’ve our playgrounds. The faces were different,
there was a new crowd enjoying it’s exclusivity, barely containing
their thrill (in deference to ‘confident cool’), but the vibe was just
the same. The waitress who removed coffees before we’d finished
& leaned across us to clear the table reminded me of the etiquette &
hierarchy at work here. We glanced at one another & grinned
remembering the night in this very corner where I’d overheard a
conversation so vibrant & rich in it’s poetic mash of words that,
at first all I could do was listen. In those days a pen & notebook was
permanently in my hand (a camera in the other), but this conversation was
an astonishing circus acrobatic act & all I could do was listen.
When I started to write I chuckled, this was going to be a fantastic lyric.
Twenty minutes into speed scrawling I glanced up to see who I was transcribing (they were genius in their clattering dialogue that flowed with such practised ease)
There in the opposite corner were the assembled cast of ‘The Fast Show‘,
I was gutted! Even as a fully paid up drunk I’d made a pack never to steal
another writer’s work, so, drawing thick black lines through every page,
I closed the book & returned to the solitude of my bitter beer cocoon.

(K)

TUESDAY HAPPENED LATER THAN EXPECTED:

(K)

MONDAY – MONDAY:

Mamma’s & the Papa’s

(K)

POSTING PICTURES TO KATHMANDU:

Alone in a kitchen, a fridge humming in the corner, the high fizz of
electricity in halogens, wrapped in the black cocoon of night. No traffic
on the roads, only the delicate hiss of rain falling on black top, guttural
voice in gutters, floods that hide cats eyes & turn motorists into surfers.
The naked sticks of winter reveal themselves again, succulent & glistening.
The Hawthorn & the stricken Ash, weave their complex rhythms in the dark,
rehearsing invisible choreography to celebrate the sun.

(K)

BUILDING MOUNTAINS TO CLIMB:

Have you checked your list, your list of important things to do?
How many of them come before family? Driving in the fog today,
I hope we get there & back safely….tune in tomorrow.

(K)

EVERYTHING IS DIRT & ALL THE DIRT IS BEAUTIFUL:

I found beautiful concrete structures underneath the fly-overs
at Brent Cross. A river, sheathed in hardcore shuttering lined with
delicate trees that reminded me of Tokyo, tableaux framed in cracks & rust
whose stains dibble fabulous colours down the walls of stinking gullies.

(K)

WHAT ARE YOU DOIN’ TONIGHT?:

After a day in the rain photographing the brutal architecture
of fly overs & foot bridges at Brent Cross the clouds break for blue
to burst through like a broken fly of a favourite pair of jeans.

(K)

THIS TRAIN BOUND FOR GLORY:

Dark rain, cold light, the sky comes down to the ground to run
it’s sodden fingers through the trees. The trees recede in tones of
blue & yellow light promises nostalgia & sanctuary from the windows
of houses before dawn. This was the habitat of the duvet diver, a face at
the window looking out at the world, a cold winter flat in the eaves of a
Bute-town building where mushrooms grew on the kitchen walls.

(K)