Routine

Prior to the current stooshie, I didn’t have many routines, but Thursday was the day I’d wander along to a shop and buy the latest edition of New Scientist, one of two magazines I get regularly (the other is Fortean Times to which I have a subscription). A couple of weeks ago I took the precaution of subscribing to New Scientist too, because it was reasonable to think there’d be problems getting the print edition. Ironically enough the magazine appears to be reaching the shops still before the postal service can get it to me.

Yes, I do know New Scientist comes as a digital edition too, and that’s part of my subscription, but I liked the element of going out to get it, and I like sitting down with a pen and a cuppa to do the crossword if I can.

These days, Thursday is the day we all emerge from our burrows at 20.00 and applaud health and care worker. It’s the only communal activity we have. It’s also a new communal activity in a street that, for all the years we’ve been here, has largely kept to itself. I’d like to think we can keep this spirit going, maybe have some kind of street party once this all ends, but it’s equally likely the communal spirit will dissipate and we’ll go back to the way we were. I hope not.

***

As regular readers will know, I’m running a project to write a short note every day about something musical that happened 50 years ago in 1970, though I haven’t written today’s entry yet. 50 years ago today, by the way, the crew of Apollo 13 were still trying to get home.

Anyway, part of the 1970 project involved going into the National Library of Scotland in January to look through their pretty much complete runs of Melody Maker and New Musical Express for 1970. I was trying to lay the ground for having enough stuff to write about through the year, and particularly looking for artists or recordings I didn’t remember, and things to listen to for the first time. That mainly meant the Jazz reviews in Melody Maker.

Grrrreat!

One band I didn’t recognise was the Henry Lowther Band, who released an album called Child Song in August 1970. I took a listen on Spotify and was completely blown away, so much that I went straight to Discogs where, I discovered, a near-mint copy of the original album on Deram will currently set you back £300 plus postage.

Anyway, I listened again today and tonight’s music is from it. If my pal Malcy reads this, the bass player is Daryl Runswick, a contemporary of Pete Atkin, Clive James and Julie Covington in the Cambridge Footlights. Runswick and James wrote The Song of The Double Bass Player.

The 1970 music press was keen to talk up the jazz-rock and fusion element, but this sounds like jazz to me.