What's in a name?

Around And Around, Chuck Berry – The Bodega, Southampton

Love Makes Music Sweet, The Soft Machine – Arcari’s, Canterbury

Pictures Of Lily, The Who – The Three Mariners, Faversham

We Love You, The Rolling Stones – The Cherry Pie, Canterbury

Foxy Lady, The Jimi Hendrix Experience – Maddieson’s Holiday Camp, Littletstone

Alone Again Or, Love – The Foundry, Canterbury

Honky Tonk Women, The Rolling Stones – The Happy Haggis, Aviemore

Alright Now, Free – The Student Bar, Royal College of Art

Life On Mars, David Bowie – The King’s Head, Falmouth

Reeling In The Years, Steely Dan – The Art Studio, EMI House

Every Breath You Take, The Police – Nafsika Hotel, Agios Stefanos

Standing In The Shadows Of Love, The Four Tops – The Victoria, Es Calo

Summertime, Deep Dive Corp – The Blue Bar, Playa Migjorn

The power of song can take you to many places. Sitting in the studio having just completed the latest in my ‘Hero’ series, I was having a quiet five minutes, effortlessly stretching to forty-five on this gloriously warm sunny Sunday afternoon. As the subject was George Harrison I was giving the Fabs a spin on the old music machine. Amongst the many memories that drifted in and out of mind it was the opening bars of ‘Hey Jude’ that grabbed me by the scruff of the neck and dumped me squarely back on the easy-wipe plastic upholstery of a cafe chair in the late summer of 1968.

Fresh from three years of studies, college mate Dave and myself had just moved into our first London flat and were attempting to get on the first rung of the ladder as graphic designers. To pay the second week’s rent we had signed-on at the Employment Exchange in Strutton Ground, Victoria and volunteered our services for temporary work while we sought a permanent position. Graphic design being deemed to be a profession, we were quickly ushered upstairs to sign up for the grandly titled ‘Professional and Executive Register’. There we found carpet rather than lino and were issued with cards to take with us to Westminster City Hall where we were to be interviewed for our suitability to hand out electoral registration forms door-to-door.

Having passed the audition we were told to report back the following Monday at 8.45 sharp. We went away happy, safe in the knowledge that we were good for the rent with money left over for food and some modest treats. The work didn’t seem too taxing. We would be given a designated area of streets where each residential dwelling was to be in receipt of a form, which when completed and returned would allow the permanent occupiers to vote. Rather than merely drop the brown addressed envelopes through the door, we were asked to try and raise a personal response so that we could check for a change in occupier. If there was a new resident we were to make a note for the record.

Monday soon rolled around and Dave and I, as instructed suitably attired in semi-smart mode, reported for duty. We were allotted to managers, each responsible for an area in the Borough of Westminster, Dave getting the swanky south of Regents Park district and me the shabbier area around The Strand. The phrase ‘Have a banana’ sprung to mind at the news, followed closely by ‘Jammy bugger’. Dave also got the more relaxed, nice, female boss while I got the old school, by the book, grumpy male version. Once inducted we were sent out onto the streets, our shoulder bags stuffed with a day’s work.

Joining fellow workers at the bus stop we learned that many of them were old hands and they quickly brought us up-to-speed on the realities of the job, including the low down on our managers. As I’d already guessed, I had the pedantic, miserable, disciplinarian. Thank you Big G. Many of our new colleagues appeared to earn their living from casual employment, much of their work being seasonal. There were actors, window dressers, musicians, students, waiters: we made a somewhat motley crew as we waited on Victoria Street for our transport to arrive, but they were a good bunch, here but for fortune just trying to make ends meet until something better came along.

By the end of the first week a few of us had taken to starting our day with half-an-hour in the local cafe, although far enough away from head office to avoid any awkward encounters. Among our little gang was Paul, a composer/musician struggling for his big break and Alan who was just struggling. Alan was gay, battling the prejudice of potential employers. Don’t believe all the hype about the liberated 60’s. The Sexual Offences Act had only been passed the previous year in 1967, when homosexual acts become legal between two males over 21, in private.

Each morning we sat down with a cup of tea and a bacon sarnie and swapped hopes, dreams and aspirations. Paul lived with his mum in a council tower block in Pimlico, spending his evenings and weekends writing and recording his own music, sending tapes to record companies, publishers and producers. Always optimistic, the call was yet to come. But with his corduroy cap pulled down firmly over his ears he kept us entertained with his chirpy humour and tall stories. Alan lived with his partner over whom he constantly fretted. Younger than Alan, he was a fragile character who had never managed to hold down any kind of job. After a word at City Hall Alan did manage to get him signed up with his own form posting round, but on the first morning the poor lad was an emotional wreck. He only lasted a couple of days.

Recalling those days when I find myself in the streets off The Strand I wonder what became of the members of our temporary café society. But it’s the theme tune, chosen each day on the jukebox before we hit the mean streets, that never fails to take me back. The Beatles ‘Hey Jude’.

Michael Holliday*. He was.

*Michael Holliday (26 November 1924 — 29 October 1963) was a British singer (real name Norman Alexander Milne) popular in the late 1950s and early 1960s, who sang in a very similar style to Bing Crosby. He had a string of chart hits in the pre-Beatles era in the UK, including two number one singles, "The Story of My Life" and "Starry Eyed".

Jimi Hendrix. Was he any good?

So. Eight gramophone records. And why. In the end I avoided things that were very specific to time, place or person - potentially too maudlin. I didn’t necessarily choose my all-time favourite favourites - still far too many and anyway, I carry them in my head. No Beatles – again, I know them by heart and could hum them all. So I went for mood, texture, lyrics and singalongability. I’d be doing a lot of singing along.

In no particular order:

1.’Round Midnight – Miles Davis
Stranded on a desert island surrounded by all that raw nature I’d need to be able to conjure up big cities, which I love. Can’t think of anyone better to help me than Miles and his muted trumpet.

2.One Day Like This – Elbow
A relative newcomer to my collection, ‘Seldom Seen Kid’ has become a firm favourite. I’ve chosen this track for its sweeping string arrangement and its optimistic lyrics. A great song for starting another day alone. ‘It’s looking like a beautiful day’.

3.JS Bach – The Brandenburg Concertos
Bach is my favourite classical composer and I’d need something to get my teeth into. This 6 concerto boxed set would do nicely – and I’m allowed because other castaways have pulled the same scam.

4.Desolation Row – Bob Dylan
One of Zimmy’s classics from the amphetamine driven days. Stacked full of imagery with a cavalcade of a cast right from the off. ‘They’re selling postcards of the hanging, they’re painting the passports brown, the beauty parlours full of sailors, the circus is in town’. And he was never in better voice – really close to the mic. Champion!

5.I Won’t Dance – Frank Sinatra with the Count Basie Orchestra
Two masters of their genre with a song to match composed by Jerome Kern. Having dabbled with a spot of vocalising with the company house band, I’d love to have had a go with a big swing band and they didn’t come better than this. As for Frank, what can I say? Try singing along to realise how good was his sense of timing . I always come in too early. And any song that contains the line ‘For heaven rest us, I’m not asbestos’ deserves an airing on the beach.

6.Some Girls Are Bigger Than Others – The Smiths
Three reasons for this one. The lyrics, Johnny Marr’s jangling twelve-string (I think) riff and the unashamed sentimentality of the closing chorus, all delivered with that hint of Mancunian melancholy . Again, any song that includes the lyric ‘ As Antony said to Cleopatra as he opened a crate of ale, oh I say, some girls are bigger than others’ is guaranteed to crack a smile.

7.La Chanson De Jacky – Jacques Brel
I’ve always had a weakness for torch songs and rousing ballads sung in French. I wonder if this is due to a recently discovered genealogical fact? My great great grandfather was French, born in Le Havre in 1819. Whatever the reason, this chanson would lift the spirits and be free of any direct associations. I’d look forward to learning the lyrics with a phonetic ear.

8.Won’t Get Fooled Again – The Who
I had to have some good ol’, no excuses ‘cos I don’t care, ROCK. The shortlist was Led Zep –- Dazed And Confused, The Stones - Gimme Shelter and The Who – Won’t Get Fooled Again. Zep were out – too much memory. The Stones came close, but The Who won out. All that air guitar windmilling would strengthen my raft building arm.

So, there you have it. Of course tomorrow it would be completely different.

The Human League, alphabetically and democratically arranged on the back cover of 'League Unlimited', including the sleeve designer, my mate and colleague, Ken Ansell (middle, top row).

Music is personal. One person’s elixir is another’s cyanide. Much of this has to do with the accident of birth. The music we hear in our formative years can forever set the mould in dictating what we like or dislike, what we consider to be good or bad. Throughout the history of popular music as we know it today, when it became accessible to millions through technology, beginning with early versions of the gramophone, followed by radio, film, TV and now the internet, there have inevitably been peaks and troughs: times when the music of the day has moved things forward at a pace and times when it has slowed, stood still, even regressed. If at the age when you start to be aware of pop music it’s on a high, hallelujah. If it’s in a trough, tough. But to a great extent it’s out of our hands and we have to accept the balls that roll out in the great lottery of musical history. Someone’s Bing Crosby, is another’s Buddy Holly, is another’s Beatles, is another’s Bay City Rollers, is another’s Buzzcocks, is another’s Bananarama, is another’s Boyzone, is another’s Busta Rhymes, is another’s Beyonce, is another’s Bat For Lashes and no end of debate, argument and ridicule is going to change that.

Personally, the 80’s were a bit of a trough. Too many two-fingered synth bands for my taste. But time is a great anaesthetic and it was with mild surprise that last night I found myself at a musical event that celebrated the decade that, unbelievably, began almost 30 years ago. And I had a jolly good time. Okay T’Pau were never on my hit list, but Carol Decker started the show and got the audience of mainly 40-somethings on their feet and doing that jiggling-on-the-spot thing that passes for dancing while carrying a spare tyre where a waistline used to be and a bottle of warm Chardonnay. Her finale, ‘China In Your Hand’, got the arms aloft and swaying in unison – almost.

Nick Heyward was next up. He of the chunky knit sweaters and Haircut 100. Like Ms Decker, his original band no longer backed him, but he joyfully informed us that they were reforming for a concert around Christmas. And why not? Everybody else is. He ambled on stage dressed like he’d got the call to appear while on the way to the garden centre, but turned in an acoustic set in the relaxed manner of Val Doonican, all toothy grins, gentle banter and self-depreciating humour. The relative brevity of the Haircuts career was helped by the short set lasting just long enough to cover the memorable hits. Nick was still able to cause a flutter in the hearts and eyelashes of a few mothers of teenage daughters who were moved to call his name and declare undying love while their partners studied their shoes and looked a little sheepish, much like Nick’s old woolly.

Richard Drummie of Go West had apparently gone east for the evening, leaving his partner, Peter Cox to carry the songs alone. This he did with all the voice and pop pomp that the intervening years would allow. Gone was the gleaming white vest and muscles that I seemed to recall from TOTP, only to be replaced by an equally dazzling white shirt to cover the slightly less toned torso. With his shaved head and tendency for flashes of macho posturing I’m surprised Peter hasn’t been offered a part in EastEnders: surely only a matter of time. But he can still belt them out and caused the two ladies next to me to sing and shout themselves hoarse. Eventually. Thankfully.

Then there was ABC. The album ‘Lexicon Of Love’ was a turntable favourite in the studio at the time and endures as not just an 80’s classic, but a classic that spans the decades. Yes, I said that. I really must get around to getting a copy on CD. Back performing as ABC after suffering from Hodgkin’s Disease and a journey through various musical incarnations, Martin Fry took to the stage in glowing white suit and smile to match, receiving a rapturous welcome from the crowd. A medley of greatest hits performed with panache, skill and energy set the adoring audience up nicely for headliners, The Human League.

I have history with The Human League. My mate and business partner, Ken Ansell, worked on many of their album and singles releases during their hiatus, including the iconic ‘Dare’. This meant that they were frequent visitors to our various studios at the time and I had a passing acquaintance with some of the band. This included the potentially embarrassing (to me) mac encounter I had with Philip Oakey, but that’s for another time.

Because of their insistence on complete democracy when it came to representing the band to the outside world, Ken’s life was sometimes made difficult when translating the Leagues ideas into cover designs. I remember than on one occasion the plan was to picture the band members as if they were flying, like free-falling from a plane. They were all photographed separately in various ‘flying’ poses and Ken set about working on a layout, comping all the pictures together to achieve the desired effect. His initial visual was rejected because in order to make it look as realistic as possible, he had made some band members bigger than others, as they would have been had they been falling separately and not in a row holding hands, which they didn’t want. Ken pointed out that to fit them all in, the illusion of reality would be difficult to achieve. Reality was sacrificed for democracy and the band were happy.

They were happy last night and turned in a great set. With just Philip, Joanne and Susanne remaining from the ‘Dare’ days they showed why their music is cited as influential by many of today’s crop of up and coming musicians. Although ‘Don’t You Want Me’ and ‘Love Action’ remain as classic pop singles, their synth only policy meant that I was never a total convert: until yesterday. Seeing them perform live for the first time won me over. Philip was charismatic and the girls, as they always did on TV, raised a smile with their stage presentation and backing vocals. Always grounded by their down-to-earth south Yorkshire roots, essentially they remain those ‘waitresses working in a cocktail bar’ who were picked out and rocketed to stardom. Susanne especially performs as if she enjoys every second of being on stage, going through the same moves as I imagine she was on the night that Philip first met the two friends on the dancefloor of a Sheffield club over three decades ago and offered them a job.

By the time ‘Together In Electric Dreams’ closed the show, the audience had been treated to a big slice of nostalgia and pop history. And in these times of recession, MP's expenses, swine flu, Afghanistan and Pop Idol, it’s good to be part of some genuine heartfelt joy. Although all this music talk reminds me that I only have hours to come up with my 'Desert Island Discs'. That's wiped the smile off my face. It's going to the wire.

I’ve been challenged by a mate to choose my Desert Island Discs: just eight records that may have to sustain me for years while I wait for rescue. Impossible. But as the gauntlet has been thrown, it’s something that has to be done. As a listener to the programme, I’ve naturally been through the exercise of choosing my own selection. I start confidently, thinking that there are some obvious bankers. That usually takes me at least half way to numbers four and five, then things start to get tough, the doubts start to creep in and I start again. This continues until I concede defeat and give in.

The difficulties arise depending on the criteria on which the choice is made. The majority of guests on the programme make their selection based on creating a soundtrack to their lives. The music is picked to remind them of time, place and loved-ones. I guess this is so because it makes the process marginally easier. Start with childhood; move on to early teens, cover student days, early adulthood, partners/family/friends, something spiritual, a guilty pleasure, something worthy and intellectual. There you have it: eight discs for your wind-up gramophone. Well, how else are you going to play them on this island without electricity? Has that ever been explained?

Raymond Briggs, the author and illustrator, didn’t follow the autobiographical route. His discs were all current, nothing older than a year or two, with, as I recall, no long-term attachments to his past. This I found very refreshing. Doing this, he avoided any potential for bouts of depression and maudlin thought brought on by music reminding him of the life that was now denied him. If one is to stay strong in this enforced isolation, staying positive and focussed would be essential. If a chap were breaking down at the revival of some memory every time he wound up the gramophone, the raft would never get built, shelter constructed, fish caught or fire lit.

The other problem is that as I’ve continued to maintain my interest in music as the years have slipped by, the list of potential candidates for inclusion has grown. I have chums, who shall remain nameless, whose age can be estimated by a quick inspection of their music collection. Nothing much has been added since their mid-twenties. The odd ‘best of’ maybe, ‘The Three Tenors’ and some freebies given away in the Sunday papers, but mainly stuff that they’d once owned on vinyl and re-purchased on CD. Nothing wrong with that, but I find that I can never have enough choice. The more I get, the more I want.

Oh my lord. The more I think about this, the more I realise that it really is IMPOSSIBLE. Do I go down memory lane? Do I base it purely on musical appreciation? Do I base it on my current favourites? Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!

In 1963, there was none greater. Preferably two of them. One left. One right. Size 9 I/2.

It’s now getting on for two months since my friend and colleague Adrian Miles
died suddenly, aged 50. I miss him every day, in many ways. We shared much in
common so that’s to be expected. Rather than keep these things to
myself, I’ll use this blog to occasionally share his memory. One thing we
didn’t share was a passing liking for jazz. I do, he didn’t. And I say
‘passing’ because I wouldn’t call myself an aficionado, by no means coming
close to being an authority, but I like some pieces and artists that have
passed through over the years and stuck. I put this down to the many films, TV
dramas and documentaries that used jazz in their soundtracks during my
creatively formative years in the crucible of the 60’s.

I doubt that had he been born ten years earlier, this would have been enough
to turn Ade into a black polo-neck wearing head waggler. He didn’t just not
like jazz; he had an allergy to it. From the first notes he become agitated,
irritable and restless. He lost concentration, unable to let the offending
piece fade into the background. Ade’s verbal response was rhetorical and
always the same. ‘Is this jazz?’ required no answer. His was to either get
it turned off or at least changed for something else. In the workplace where
there was always music playing, or in bars and restaurants that were regular
haunts this was achievable. In unfamiliar surroundings it would prove to be
trickier. To avoid a scene it was easier to change venues, which if
circumstances allowed, he would. If this was impossible Ade would harrumph,
fidget and scowl while the offending sounds continued, only returning to
equilibrium at their cessation.

I’ve just had an ‘Is this jazz?’ moment when my iPod threw up a John
Coltrane track on shuffle. If you’re listening, sorry Ade. I’m sure
Morrissey will be along at any moment.

I was mildly amused to see that some Amazon customers who have purchased Patrick Newley’s book ‘The Amazing Mrs Shufflewick: The Life of Rex Jameson’, also bought packs of Duracell AAA Plus 8 batteries, no doubt to power their hearing aids and pacemakers. For those who have never heard of Mrs S, she was one of the last artistes from that now defunct genre known as music hall, it’s stars now all sadly gone to tread the boards in that great Hackney Empire in the sky. I remember her appearing on TV and wireless variety shows in the 50’s and early 60’s. I say ‘she’, but she was a he of course, one of the greats of the peculiarly British tradition of men performing in frocks.

When not on radio or TV and away from my then tender young ears, Mrs Shufflewick’s act was absolute filth, but delivered with the utmost delicacy and a mastery of entendres, doubles, triples and quadruples, that created mayhem. Her character was that of a faux genteel cockney charlady, sitting at a slight angle to the table with her drink in front of her, engaging her audience with the likes of ‘Do you like this fur, girls? It cost £200. I didn't pay for it meself; I met 200 fellas with a pound each. This is very rare, this fur,’ Shuff continues. ‘This is known in the trade as 'untouched pussy' - which as you know is unobtainable in the West End of London at the moment. And I don't think there's much knocking around here tonight.’ Mrs Slocombe eat your heart out.

My interest in the venerable Gladys Shufflewick (to giver her full name) is her possible inclusion in my ‘Hero’ series, which I’ve now resumed following a two-month detour into another project. I’m down to the last four, so competition is hot for the final places. Will Shuff make it? Who knows, but she’d appear as both a man and a woman. It was the man, Rex Jameson, who finally succumbed to alcohol in 1983 on the way to the Theatre Royal Stratford East, taking his creation with him. If the two of them had made it to A&R, it could have gone like this; "I can't find out what's wrong with you," the doctor said. "I think it must be the drink." "Never mind, doctor, I'll come back when you're sober."
Boom Boom.

We all do it: return from a couple of weeks in another country feeling free to hold forth with great authority on ‘the French, the Spanish, the Italians, the Americans, the Scots, the Irish, the Cornish…’ Whereas the fact is, that based on a mere holiday, we don’t know these peoples any better than, as a nation, we know ourselves. As with even our closest personal friends, we see what they choose we should see, resulting in not really knowing anyone. Even ourselves.

Take my next-door neighbours. They have had a residence in France for over twenty years. Each spring they leave for a five to six-month stay. Do they claim to know the French? Non. They are wise enough to know that another twenty years wouldn’t be enough to achieve that. But do they know some French people? Mais oui. But knowing their French neighbours doesn’t give them an insight into the deepest, darkest psyche of France any more than my knowing them gives me the knowledge to lecture on what makes we British tick, let alone tock.

So the fleeting relationships that are struck up with waiters, barmen, hotel receptionists, the nice smiley man who runs the mini-market and the couple met at breakfast plus a bit of casual observation, are not enough to pronounce, ‘Well of course, the Czechs don’t…’ going on to collectively sum up the habits of a nation with all the authority of someone who really knows what they’re talking about. Not that actually knowing this is going to stop us.

I daresay when I get back from my trip to the States in September I’ll hear myself spouting outrageously generic statements like, ‘Of course, away from the big cities everyone eats dinner at six, take no more than twenty minutes to bolt it down and are in bed by nine-thirty.’ Now, there is a pinch of truth in there but it’s no more the whole truth than believing that everyone in France prepares a Michelin Star rated meal three times a day or that the English eat nothing but roast beef washed down with a pint of milky tea.

Why then do we persist with this? Possibly because it shows that we are bright enough to recognise the differences between ourselves and our environment and the places and people we encounter when we’re out of it. The good things we see gives us empathy with our strange surroundings and the not-so-good means that we can sympathise with those that have to put up with it permanently, safe in the knowledge that our stay is only temporary. Okay, this is not always the case. If it were, no-one would emigrate as obviously millions do, preferring to trade in old habits and customs for new ones.

I find that in another country, if one is prepared to acknowledge differences and live with them, putting aside how things are at home, the more pleasurable the experience. If you enjoy a cup of tea, don’t bother to order one in a diner in Tucson. It’ll be tea bag infused abomination. Stick with coffee. Don’t even try to find a vegetarian restaurant in Prague. It’ll end in tears. Relax when told with a dismissive shrug, that of course all restaurants in the small French provincial town in which you find yourself are closed on Tuesdays. And Mondays. And Sunday evenings. And Saints days. And if there’s an ‘R’ in the month. In Norway be prepared to hang in there for the hotel bar to re-open after the evening licensing law curfew. Midnight should do it. On that Greek island accept that used toilet paper is not for the toilet bowl, but the pedal bin next to it. It’s okay, if you’re lucky you’re not expected to empty and burn the contents, one of the locals takes care of that. There I go, a whole list of wild generalisations posing as informed facts about foreign parts.

Why though, do I include Cornwall in a list of foreign countries? Ever heard of Mebyon Kernow? Just don’t mention pasties, Rick Stein and cream teas.