The days are getting shorter and my pumpkins adorn the yard like golden baubles on a Christmas tree. This is very apt as the creation of the 2012 CD has also begun. My playlist of new music has swollen to an impressive 626 tunes which over the coming months will be pruned down to 20 or so for the final cut. It’s become not only a tradition but a labour and gesture of love. You know who you are and it’s going to be a cracker. Anyways, it’s not Christmas yet so enough already.

 

Tuesday was a tough 12 hour day and I was glad to get home, be alone, and settle in front of the TV. Essential viewing at the moment is the Great British Bake Off which thanks to Mel and Sue is a marvel. It astonishes me that a cookery competition can be such gripping viewing but I think that’s down to the contestants who are such lovely people. My current favourite is the marvellously wry John Waite who suffered the set back of a sliced finger this week but has lived to bake another day. He can butter my buns anytime and long may his flour be self-raising.

 

I had the enormous pleasure of meeting Mel and Sue many times when I worked at the old Komedia in Manchester Street. They were always warm and fun to be around and lacking in any artifice. My theory is that the really talented people are generally nice but the ones without much to work with are the vipers. I remember one afternoon particularly well. I was cleaning and stocking the bar in readiness for show that night and Sue appeared for a cup of tea which she took to a quiet corner. At the time they’d recently been commissioned to write for the French and Saunders show.

What do you think of this?

I wandered over and peered down at the spaghetti of doodles and scrawl.

I was thinking of Dawn French; doing that Bjork number- the one on the truck in New York.

Big Time Sensuality you mean?

Yes that’s the one

Genius

 I’m sure Bjork laughed along with the rest of us J

http://www.myspace.com/video/jason/french-saunder-bjork-video/2336527

 Another highlight this week was sitting down to watch ‘Last Shop Standing’ which charts the rise and fall of the independent record shop. About a year ago I came across a flyer in Resident Records alongside a plea for funding and decided to donate £25 to the project. To my amazement my name is listed in the credits as a result. Like book stores independents are becoming an endangered species thanks to supermarkets and the culture of downloads. I spent many an afternoon in my formative years in record stores and my ear was refined by the experience. I would browse for hours and examine record sleeves whilst drifting in and out of the listening booths. One thing would lead me to another and this organic chancing remains my springboard to new discoveries to this day. Set me down in Amoeba Records in San Francisco and you won’t see me for days but your ears will be happy when I emerge.

 

http://lastshopstanding.com/

 

Richard Hawley is featured in the movie and I was lucky enough to see the great man live only last night at the Brighton Dome. His new album is a departure from the crooning old school romantic of the last few records and has a rougher psychedelic edge of which I wholeheartedly approve.

 

 

This title track from the new record concerns an area of Sheffield called Sky’s Edge which a century ago was home to gang warfare and gambling. Here it’s used as a metaphor for the state of modern Britain, and a ‘government using the recession to force through politics that will put us back 125 years’ to quote Mr. Hawley himself.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zileXIdVc00

 

They were standing at the sky's edge,
And out there who knows what they're thinking.
They were sliding down the razor's edge
And watched their lives slowly sinking,
Away, away, away, away, away.

The song was a highlight of the show thanks to Richard’s first class guitar playing. His love of the instrument was clearly demonstrated by the range featured and after one number someone shouted out ‘what guitar was that’ to be duly advised that the beauty in question was a Les Paul Gold Top. The late Paul Kossoff immediately sprang to my mind because this alongside other Les Pauls was a favourite of the great man.

 

Free were an obsession of mine in the early 70s and hugely influential on my emerging taste. There was far more to them than ‘All Right Now’ and great depth to their writing. This could swagger with the best or switch to tenderness with ease and although they were all virtuosos the glue that bound the four sticks together was the pleading vibrato of Paul Kossoff’s guitar. I would play all four sides of the ‘Free Story’ whilst playing along with my tennis racket. To this day, this is the only use I have ever found for such a thing. Anyway, here they are.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S34C_b3Ufrg

 

I heard of Paul’s death in 1976 whilst at Sixth Form College and promptly burst into tears. He was just 25 and lost to drugs. For me he sang with his guitar displaying the emotion, resonance and feeling of an Al Green or Marvin Gaye. There was no showing off or dazzling speed, just his soul singing.

The track 'Mr Big' was a live favourite and showcases the great strengths of the band. Paul Rodgers growling soul voice, Andy Fraser’s melodic bass, Simon Kirke’s rock steady foundation and the man with the Les Paul Gold Top.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Azkef2lXW88&feature=related

RIP Paul Kossoff - 14 September 1950 – 19 March 1976