As regular readers will know, I’ve spent the last eleven and a half months in 1970, listening to and commenting on albums released that year. It’s been fun, although it hasn’t gone quite as I expected; I originally planned to do a post a day and to include occasional essays on stuff found in the music press, notably casual and unreflective sexism and racism, and the shifting definitions of ‘progressive’.
It didn’t work out that way, mainly because the arrival of a global pandemic and lockdown flattened a lot of my impulse to be creative. Also, there was some crappy music in the middle of 1970 that I didn’t feel much inclined to listen to and write about. Things have picked up of late though.
Anyway, after some discussions and some thought, I’ve decided to keep going into 1971. Pre-pandemic I managed to spend several days in the National Library of Scotland with their complete 1970 runs of Melody Maker and New Musical Express. I’d like to do the same for 1971 if I can, with the added bonus of Sounds to refer to if it’s in their archive. I won’t be doing a post a day, but I’m looking now at a preliminary list. If 1970 was still in the shadow, somewhat, of 1967-69, by 1971 we were definitely into the era of the progressive underground and the frost-blue eyelids of Glam rock. There was plenty of decent jazz around, and a lot happening on the folk scene.
As I write this, I have no idea what stupidities are being planned for us in the name of Brexit by our own grifters, crooks, charlatans and chancers, but it doesn’t look good.
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Music: I’ve had this song before, in its Bony-M incarnation, but not this 1970 original from Jamaica. The Melodians: Rivers of Babylon
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.
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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.
The 1970s music project is fun, but one thing is starting to irk me: I decided I’d concentrate on things I like or, if I don’t like, can at least appreciate. Only one entry so far really went against that. As I go into February I’ve sidled up to several albums I was looking forward to hearing that turn out to do nothing for me, and I’ve formulated a working hypothesis: if a seventies album on YouTube attracts comments from old blokes (and it is invariably blokes) along the lines of Classic! This is what music’s all about! then in all probability it will be shite.
Since I like to listen through any albums I write about at least twice before scribbling notes, there’s a lot I’m avoiding because a couple of tracks into side one and I’m recoiling. That limits what there is to write about. If there’s something that doesn’t grab me but is nonetheless interesting, that’s one thing, but that’s not what I’m talking about; it’s stuff that doesn’t grab me and is wholly uninteresting that’s the problem.
I mentioned in my last post that I’d started the new series of The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina; half way through it and I’ve given up. Yes, I know I’m not the target audience, but still. More generally, as I was saying to Lindsay last night after scrolling through the menu on Netflix, there is an awful lot of high-production-value rubbish out there.
The site is changing appearance again, driven by the 1970 music project and the need for user-friedly menus to navigate it. At the time I write this, I know the menu is looking odd on tablets and phones but for the life of me I can’t get the opacity of the drop-down menus to stabilise. I daresay it is a simple fix I haven’t found yet.
I’m happy with the way the project is going, though I underestimated the work needed to keep up a supply of daily content. At present it is pushing other activities, such as writing fiction, to one side. I need to address this, but not quite yet. In the meantime the project led me to spend three days in the National Library of Scotland going through Melody Maker for 1970 and early 1971, and I plan to do the same for New Musical Express, as well as speed through 1969 for a couple of key events and album releases to which I’d like to refer.
Having said how much the project is eating into my time, yesterday we were at the cinema to see JoJo Rabbit. I wasn’t sure what to expect on the basis of the trailer, but it was brilliant. Compelling and moving precisely because of its absurdity, and perfectly cast throughout. I saw some reviews saying how its humour fell flat, but all I can say is that everyone in the busy cinema we saw it at laughed, and everyone needed a handkerchief for those moments when dust gets in your eye.
(added: no sooner had I written the above than the opacity issue was solved–I think, let me know if it’s not–and I drafted down The Teeth of Timothy Trask, which is hardly a major opus but is a short slice of jolly horror that’s been on my mind for a couple of days.)
The New Year has , you probably noticed, brought a change of theme for the blog. This has been brought on by two things: a desire to change things around and the need for a way of presenting pages for a new project.
In the bar across the top you’ll see a new section called 1970 in music. My plan is to make an entry per day if I can, celebrating or recalling some aspect of what happened 50 years previously. This may be a new album release, to singles chart, or anything else that takes my fancy. Malcy has suggested bass players and trousers.
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