Common Sense Dancing: I Could Dance With You

Hope you've got your breath back from all that walking yesterday..

Today we have the album's proper introduction with I Could Dance With You.

It makes heavy use of a tape based keyboard machine from the 60s, the Mellotron. Mellotrons were stock in trade for many, mainly 'progressive' bands in the 70s, but their original design was for being a fairly full musical entertainment device, and as such earlier models had a collection of rhythm/backing tapes which could be played behind a 'lead' voice. I Could Dance With You makes use of the Rhumba rhythm from the MkII Mellotron. The harp rolls, strings and clarinets are all Mellotron too..

From the middle onward there is a part which sounds almost like a Clavioline (think 'Telstar' by the Tornadoes, or read this!), but is in fact layered Mellotron violin and viola played via electric guitar and a MIDI interface..

The was a song written with someone in mind who, it turned out, had no interest in me! So it goes.. But I like the song, and will often start my solo gigs with it.

So go, go get your dancing shoes, and I'll see you tomorrow!

Common Sense Dancing: Where Shall We Go

The lockdown is in place. Being beyond the limits of one's property is limited to essential food or pharmaceutical shopping, or a single act of exercise; with this in mind, we'll start with the half-hour 'radio play,' Where Shall We Go**.

It's based around the idea of a couple (She and He) going for a circular walk around the Peak District from Eyam via Abney. It's a real walk that they follow that can be found on the Dales Trails website (It's a nice walk, I'd recommend it for 2021!). As they walk they end up talking history about Ordnance Survey maps, telephone boxes, and, coincidentally - plague!

Using a BBC Timeshift documentary, and a few other sources, it was originally intended to be 10-15 minutes, but with wanting to include proper pieces of music and have the talking not be overly didactic, it grew to the near half hour it now takes. There are some music references buried in the exchanges - can you spot them..?

'She' was played by Melanie Crawley. The flute was played by John Hackett, violin by Clare Lindley, and horn/trumpet by Ant Clifford, with backing vocals by Kim Eames. The majority of the sound effects were recorded in and around Eyam, tho' the café doorbell came from Wales..

Get a cup of your favourite brew, maybe a biscuit or two, get comfy, and press play :-)

See you tomorrow!

** No, there's so question mark. I am known among my friends as something of a strict grammarian, but I elected here to flount convention. It's art, dahling, art!

Common Sense Dancing: UK Lockdown

It's 24th March 2020, the UK has pretty much been placed in lockdown**.

My most recent album, Common Sense Dancing, was put live on Bandcamp last Friday, ahead of its 'proper' release on the 3rd April. Since the lockdown is due to be 3 weeks and Common Sense Dancing has 20 tracks, I thought I'd highlight a track a day and here and there talk about the story behind it, and hopefully by the end the world will be a better place. Because everyone did sensible things, of course, not because of the healing powers of art!

The tracks will be presented out of order, for no other reason than I can.

There will be a link to the track on Bandcamp, on which it is free to stream - there is no obligation to part with money to hear it. If you would like to play any of the tunes offline, or to see the full album artwork this will involve the movement of currency, but that is, of course, your choice!

Common Sense Dancing is built around themes of the Arts and Nostalgia, has history, humour, and reflection, and incorporates many styles of music. There should be something for all comers over the next three weeks.

So, I look forward to having you along on what might be, perhaps, Corona Sense Dancing, or may be Common Sense Distancing..

** I provide this contextual information for future readers! A bit like the brief exposition sometimes given in radio comedy sketches to set the scene..

#Storytime - the album

Joanne Harris knows a thing or two about story telling, what with more than a handful of bestselling novels to her name, a number of the having won awards.. but it turns out she's a bit of a musician as well, and has her own band playing progressive music, #Storytime. They put out an album last year. I have to say, I rather like it.

The album follows a pattern of Joanne telling a story of distant, but knowable, worlds - worlds of bees, mermaids, Queens of the sea - with gentle incidental music underneath, mostly played on piano. This is then followed by a song relating to the story. There are four tales and tunes on this first outing.

There are Middle Eastern flavours in the music, which conjures, appropriately perhaps, the aural tradition of centuries passed, and the tales of Scherezade and Ali Baba. The arrangements are largely piano/keys (with the odd bit of Mellotron - it is prog, after all!), drums, bass, flute and vocal. The flute draws the mind toward Jethro Tull and early Genesis, though the piano led passages have an air of Renaissance about them - all highly enjoyable. More up to date reference points might be Judy Dyble or Jarrod Gosling's recent works, though without so much psychedelia; one might also find similarities with the output of Ian Neal.

I found the album immensely enjoyable, and have returned to it a number of times since receiving it last year. It is everything a progressive album should be, and I really liked that the production is very natural, with room left for dynamics to shine.

Stories and songs may not be the most slickly presented programme, but it's high art for an Earthly audience.

Another album is in the works, hoped to be found in early 2020. There might even be a gig at The Lantern Theatre..

Legacy?

Bob forwarded this link to a comment on a Guardian article the other day: *click here*

It's a beautifully crafted observation, no wonder the paper have it as a 'pick.'

I find the line about 'done well at a desk' something that jumps out at me, and it might for many who work in a 'modern' setting.

Everything I do is ethereal - if there's a powercut or a router breaks, there's no proof of my industry; once a note has been played, or the line delivered on stage, it's a memory. Even if a performance is recorded, it still relies on the medium surviving along with a means of rediffusion.

Being a builder, carpenter, sculpter, etc. leaves something behind. Doctors, nurses, social workers, farmers, and others, heal, care, feed people and animals; their attentions are evident in the those whom they have, err.. attended. Even engineers and designers leave drawings.

Me? My greatest programming achievement was an automated reporting system for a utilities job management system I had written in 2003/4. I managed to get it working again in a virtual machine in 2010, but doing that now would be problematic as the VM tech has moved on. The physical work on which it reported is, at the time of writing this, 14+ years old. The holes dug for water repairs may have been re-tarmacked a couple of times since, so there's not even evidence to show for it - and being digital there isn't a chit or receipt that the work was done stored in some archive. Being magnetic, one can't even claim everything comes from dust and returns to dust - this never had a corporeal manifestation!

One might see this as the start of a midlife crisis, and "what's it all for?", but I've been comfortable with this since I started mucking about with computers and being a musician/tech 30+ years ago..

Hey ho.

Annoying People Don't Exist

"Guh, you're such an annoying person!" He didn't slam the book down, but might as well have done. She levelled her eyes at him, but held her peace.
"Oh right, what now?"

She felt like such a cliche, "Nothing." She let it hang in the air.

"It is never 'nothing'." He was careful to enunciate each syllable.
"It's just that.. well.. Annoying people don't exist."
"What?"
"They don't - annoyingly.. It's a projection on the part of the person who's annoyed. They project on to another person their own failure to deal with the situation in hand."

He stared at her. It was bad enough when she was straight with him, but these moments were always almost impossible. Sensing the need for explanation, she thought for a moment.

"There's a la.." She stopped herself. "Let's keep this gender neutral to stop any unhelpful ideas - a person is travelling on a train."

Calmly and gently the scene was set.

"They're sitting at a table, on the seat next to the window, normal carriage, you know the set up. No one else is at the table. They're reading a book."
"Where are they going?"
"Unneeded detail. But let's say it's the Transpennine express, towards Manchester - just so there's some lovely countryside. They look out of the window as they come to turn the page of their book. Unconsciously, they lick their finger (index, right hand, if you must know) before sliding the paper over. It was something they picked up from their Grandmother. When they were little, Grandma would sometimes read them bedtime stories, and she would lick her finger before turning the page. It was just something that was noticed, and consciously assimilated at a young age; but now in their mid-thirties, they had no idea they did it."

She paused, letting the peaceful picture settle in his mind.

"After a couple more pages, accompanied by the requisite finger licks, the train pulls in to a station. Let's say it was Hathersage. Several people get on, two of them join our bookreader. They look up at the new arrivals. Hmmm.. This gender neutral thing is going to be a pain."

She sipped from the cup in her hand, mentally assessing the new characters.

"One sat next to our friend, the other directly opposite. The one opposite seemed tense. From their bag placed on the otherwise empty seat they get out a laptop and some papers. Maybe they have a meeting, or it could be some deadline; but there are clearly things on their mind. The other new person watches them for a moment, smiles to themselves, and gets out a notebook and pen. They are going to meet their friend's new baby, but also going to take the opportunity for a little shopping, and a list is in order.
"Our book reader reaches the end of another spread, licks their finger, and turns the page. A few minutes pass, may be as many as ten. Everyone is settled into their thoughts. Another page is turned. Our listwriter notices the finger licking, and gently smiles. Their father would do the same, in a rather absent-minded fashion. They thought about their father, and wrote another entry on their list.
"The person opposite had noticed the digit-moistening as well."

She turned her gaze from the middle distance back to his face. Meeting his eyes, it was clear that he was listening and appreciated the new description.

"A few minutes later they notice it again. Then again.
'Why are they doing that?' questions our stressed person. Err.. Stressee? It was behaviour that, now they'd seen it, they couldn't ignore it. But they have work to do - that deadline isn't going away. Papers flutter, keys are clacked. Then the index finger is licked again.
"Now it's starting to get unbearable. The thoughts mount up. 'Don't they know the hygiene issues with doing that? What a ridiculous thing to do. Don't they realise how stupid they look licking their finger? Why don't they just lick the page and cut out the unnecessary movement?'

She took another sip.

"The stressee (nah, that doesn't work, does it?).. worker tries to concentrate on the job before them. As our reader reaches the end of another page, the right hand makes its journey upward. The movement is caught in the peripheral vision of our worker. They can barely contain themselves, but know they must. 'That person is so annoying!' reverberates around their mind."

She measured her words as they came out.
He could see it was coming, but let it pass without comment.
She left the scenario in stasis.

"Was our worker right? Is the reader an annoying person?"

The clock in the hall chimed the hour.

"On their own, the reader was unaware of their age-old habit. They were content in themselves.
"Our list-writer saw the habit, was at peace with themselves and the situation, and got on with their own life without any further fuss.
"However, the worker was stressed. Whether it was a meeting or deadline at the end of the journey, they were in no mood for the foibles of others.
"I'm sure I don't need to labour this any further, do I?"

He was looking down at the table. There was nuance to be argued, he felt. Some people set out to annoy others, their success would surely make them annoying - doubtless she had an answer for that. But the central thrust of her narrative did demonstrate her point.

"No. No, it's fine."

She finished the remnants in her cup.

"Are you getting the kettle on, then?"
"Yes, ok. And - sorry."
"Not a problem."
"But.."
She didn't quite purse her lips. "What?"

"Next time, couldn't you just hold the fart?"

Lucid - This Lonely Town

I have been passed another album - this time by the band Lucid, an album called This Lonely Town. I have reflected thereupon..

Whilst contemporary references can easily be found in the music of Big Big Train, Mostly Autumn, and others with a folk/rock edge, the slide guitar reminded a lot of Bryn Howarth's work on Wally's Valley Gardens LP - indeed, anyone sufficiently long in the tooth to recall Wally will probably find this a very pleasing set of tunes.

Range of vocals is very pleasing, all well sung, and harmonies spot on, never overdone. One might even wonder if the backing singers had been listening to Dark Side Of The Moon. The scope and depth is both wide and deep. There are some very atmospheric vistas created, as well as some quite intimate moments. The mix of near and far elements has been judged perfectly.

This clearly has roots deep in the folk and celtic idioms, blended very proficiently with more traditional rock and blues elements - even a bit of pop creeping in with Simple Things (with its interesting use of Charlie Chaplin's speech from The Great Dictator as the introduction) and Head In The Clouds. The use of acoustic instrumentation throughout is most pleasing, bringing often a lightness to the proceedings, whatever the subject matter may be. Acoustic guitar and piano form the bedrock of the sound, helped out with some fabulous violin playing, occasional flute, and both very atmospheric and stirring sax from Steve Beighton. Even a bit of fretless bass which always warms my heart.

An early reflection was that, for my own taste, I found the dynamic range of the arrangements (and between tunes) slightly less pronounced than I would like. However, as the album progresses this complaint is put to bed. There is plenty hear to engage the ears. The music hangs together perfectly well, both the tunes individually and as a collection. And, from a technical stand point, the overall production and final mixes (by Simon Hanhart) are excellent, as is the final master.

There is a timelessness about this music. It never gets locked in one place, a common feature to many folk-prog albums. It moves from straighter meters to 6/8s, up tempo to slower ballad (This Lonely Town being a highlight here, especially with its occasional drops into some Kurt Weill moments), from single instrument to very full sound.

The sound engineer in me appreciated the emotional intelligence of the sound, and that the depth of field hasn't been lost in overzealous mastering. The musician in me warmed to the arrangements; and the punter in me would be happy to go out and see them live as well as buy the odd disc!