Joy

In my work as a TV/film Commissioning Editor and Producer I often apply the Joy filter. I ask the filmmakers I’m working with “Where’s the joy in this project?” This has particularly been the case since 2008 from when people have seemed more in need of uplift than ever. If the answer is that there is none or little then it is usually not a project for me.

The night before last I went to see Van Morrison at the Albert Hall, London playing tracks from his latest LP ‘Moving On Skiffle’, his 44th studio album, including songs by figures who inspired him like Lead Belly and Hank Williams. The very special performance was characterised by the joyfulness of his playing and singing. He’s got a bit of a reputation for grumpiness (though I’ve never seen this at the many shows of his I’ve been at over the years) but on this night the opposite was on display – a man loving the kind of music he was sharing with the audience.

I’ve been to other performances like this characterised by the performer taking clear joy in what they were playing. Van at Nell’s in West Kensington opening the venue with a jazz and blues night was one memorable example – jazz, blues, skiffle are all genres he grew up on in East Belfast. Another such performance where the artist was very clearly revelling in what he was singing was David Bowie at Grenoble on the Serious Moonlight (Let’s Dance) tour in 1983 – his joy travelled off the stage and infused the witnesses.

Van joined by the hugely charismatic Ronnie Wood

Adding to the joyfulness of Van’s show this week was that he was joined on stage by The Rolling Stones’ guitarist Ronnie Wood who had the energy of an over-excited schoolboy. Also on stage was Seth Lakeman, who played fiddle with an exquisite touch and plays on the ‘Moving On Skiffle’ LP, and Joe Brown, the spiky-haired English rock’n’roller I recall from my youth who played an unlikely mandolin. Van was also joined by North London singer Chris Farlowe (now 83) who was one of the skiffle originals with the John Henry Skiffle Group in the late 50s (John Henry Deighton is his birth name) and who has been associated with the Stones since way back when. I first saw him with Van and fiddle player Dave Swarbrick (Fairport Convention) at a gig at the Westonbirt Arboretum (in Tetbury near Bristol) in 2006. As we were leaving the Albert Hall we were astonished to see Chris Farlowe, who had had his arm round Ronnie Wood’s shoulder just minutes before, standing at the bus stop among the departing concert-goers. It seemed like amazing humility on his part and people thanked him for the extraordinary show.

Van played in a skiffle band as a 12-year-old with his schoolmates in Belfast. In 1998 he recorded a live LP in Whitla Hall in his native city with Lonnie Donegan and Chris Barber called ‘The Skiffle Sessions’, which brought Lonnie out of obscurity until he went to the Great Gig in the Sky in 2002. The final track of the night, ‘It Takes a Worried Man’, was from that album. Every Van gig (more or less) in my experience is marked by a moment of transcendence – which is why I love him – and on this occasion it came in that long last song. This moment is often triggered by repetition of words or sounds. 

The skiffle band has an important place in British & Irish popular music. The genre arrived from America (jug band music and blues) in the late 50s and early 60s and was a formative influence for the Stones, Led Zeppelin and others. The Beatles famously began life as The Quarrymen, a skiffle band. It was 16-year-old John Lennon’s group and they played a now-legendary set at a Liverpool church fête in July 1957, where a certain Paul McCartney was in the crowd. The two met after the performance and later that year McCartney became a Quarryman. Also in 1957 a 13-year-old boy named James (Jimmy) Page appeared on a BBC talent show playing guitar on ‘Mama Don’t Want to Skiffle Anymore’ [see video]. Jimmy Page wrote the sleeve notes for ‘Moving On Skiffle’.

I’ve done my best to reconstruct the Albert Hall set list (which I’m preserving for posterity and as a souvenir for myself in future) – hopefully some enthusiast will publish it accurately online soon (at which point I’ll refine this, my best guess):

* Streamline Train [The Viper Skiffle Group, 1957]

* Sail Away Ladies

In the Evening (When the Sun Goes Down)

Travellin’ Blues

Take This Hammer

I Wish I Was an Apple on a Tree

* Careless Love

* This Loving Light of Mine

The Streamlined Cannon Ball

Oh Lonesome Me

Greenback Dollar

Come On In

(I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry ?)

* Mama Don’t Allow [various solos]

No Other Baby

* Cold, Cold Heart

The Gypsy Davy

Worried Man Blues

Green Green Rocky Road

I’m Movin’ On

* It Takes a Worried Man [Lonnie Donegan]

It’s telling that the headline in the Evening Standard review includes the word “joyful”.

 

On a daily basis my motto or affirmation or mantra is “I will enJOY my day“.

Latest Record Project

Tim Burgess’s Tim’s Twitter Listening Party has demonstrated during the pandemic that it is possible to generate community, human exchange and excitement about music by combining Music and Live. It is one of the best things to come out of the Plague. 

Last night Van Morrison played, or rather broadcast/premiered, a live gig from Real World Studios , set up by Peter Gabriel in 1987 in Box, just outside Bath. Van has connections with Bath, having lived there and bought his own studio there, Wool Hall in Beckington. Well, the performance was of the highest quality. Very professional, excellent sound, simply but beautifully presented, played with the greatest of skill, sung with a voice almost unchanged at 75. In short, despite being online, despite months of tedious zooming, a great energy was transmitted over the wires and through the screen.

Any shortcomings in the experience? You had to make your own social on the side – not difficult in the age of What’s App. The moment of transcendence (for both Van and his audience, a genuinely spiritual  moment) which marks every great Van concert was only just about achieved, in ‘St Dominic’s Preview’. Van stuck to his new LP, the amusingly named ‘Latest Record Project, Volume 1’, his 42nd album, for the bulk of the performance, only bringing in a few older tunes, with a bluesy bent (his deepest love), towards the end. There have been some really wide of the mark reviews of the record – here is one that gets this provocative record and how it links back right to the outset of Van’s career when he recorded an album’s worth of nonsense songs to fulfil an exploitative record contract without giving the exploiter anything he could use. The only better such record is Marvin Gaye’s searingly honest ‘Hear My Dear’ about the disintegration of his marriage to label owner Berry Gordy. 

To help mark last night’s show for posterity here are a few stills:

A rare moment when the dark glasses come off

Dana Masters is a great foil to Van’s voice

Van got stuck in on sax, blue’s harp (his top instrument), electric and acoustic guitar

A really talented band – he’s a great curator of talent

He’s a respecter of age and experience, as well as youth

Real World looking just right

Set List:

1. It’s Only a Song
2. Deadbeat Saturday Night
3. Love Should Come with a Warning
4. Do the Right Thing *
5. Up County Down
6. Latest Record Project
7. Blue Funk
8. My Time after a While
9. Diabolic Pressure
10. Why are you on Facebook?
11. Where have all the rebels gone?
12. Baby Please Don’t Go / Pachman Farm / Got my Mojo Working
13. Ain’t Gonna Moan No More
14. Days Like This
15. Broken Record
16. Cleaning Windows / Be Bop A Lula
17. St Dominic’s Preview *
18. Have I Told You Lately That I Love You? *
19. Help Me
20. Think twice before you go / Boom Boom

Have I Told You Lately..?

The band swinging

And a great band they are

A marvellous contraption

Van leading from the front

For the record

A relative in Ireland recently sent me one of those chain postings in Facebook – I don’t go for passing those on but since I did the thinking – about what my favourite records are – I’ll plop them in here for posterity.

My funeral record (last track)

My other funeral record (first track)

 

Coincidence No. 402

I’m sitting listening to Let the Record Show (the Dexys LP of 2016, their versions of Irish standards) whilst doing my 2015-16 accounts (close to the wire as usual). I get to the last track, Carrickfergus, and the lyrics

…as black as ink

just as I’m signing the cover letter to my accountant, switching from the red Pilot fountain pen I’ve been using to tick off the enclosures to a black biro because it’s just plain odd to sign stuff in blood red.

***

I saw Dexy’s play Carrickfergus in 2016 at the Festival Hall at Imagining Ireland, the London celebration of the Easter Rising centenary.

Now in Kilkenny it is reported
On marble stone there as black as ink
With gold and silver I would support her
But I’ll sing no more now til I get a drink
Cause I’m drunk today and I’m seldom sober
A handsome rover from town to town
Ah but I’m sick now my days are numbered
Come all me young men and lay me down
Come all me young men and lay me down

I got to know this song through Van Morrison’s version. During 2016 Robert Elms took Kevin Rowland, lead singer of Dexys, to see Van play at Nell’s in West Kensington. I happen to know this because Robert mentioned it in his excellent, traditional annual music round-up. Which neatly rounds up today’s circle of connection and coincidence.

Van & Tom

I just found this on the phone I’m about to dump – meant to post it at the time (8th Nov 2015, just home from the gig) but must have lost it in all the excitement…

Robert Elms introduced Van Morrison and Tom Jones tonight at Blues Fest in the Millennium Dome, saying this is the first time they’ve performed live together – I’ll believe it (though I’m slightly surprised).

Van played first, brought Tom on at the end of his set. Then Tom played with his young band and brought Van back on at the end. They didn’t look rehearsed which was good – small mistakes about when to come in is a small price to pay for some proper connection.

Van’s band was old and experienced; Tom’s was young and spunky. Van’s set was jazzy blues; Tom’s was raw chapel gospelly blues.

Van was in wry humourous mood (contrary to reputation); Tom was nostalgic in a forward-looking, energetic way.

Who in this generation (or recent ones) I wondered will be capable of doing a gig like this in 50 years?

Some highlights included:

Van:

* Making love in the afternoon – where the ‘high’ in ‘highway’ was brought to my attention for the first time, Van really getting into the sex&drugs groove

* Baby please don’t go – with drum beat gun shots at the climax

* No Plan B – Van’s band followed him to a higher place, building to a driving end of set

Tom:

* What is the soul of man – the stripped down blues of Praise & Blame

* I love you baby can’t help myself – beautiful sparse arrangement Tom made full use of

Van & Tom:

What am I living for if not for you & Strange Things – where the pair of them found their together groove

No Whenever God Shines His Light nor Gotta Serve Somebody but the event lived up to its promise and was more than the sum of its parts. Their connection through the Celtic and the Blues made it a match of the heavenly variety.

Van’s set

Tom’s set

Desert Island Discs Day

I was at a meeting this afternoon chaired by Kirsty Young of Desert Island Discs which set me thinking about the various times I’ve had a stab at my 8 discs, as well as playing the game with the Enfants Terribles. It’s interesting to have musical yardsticks over time to see how consistent or otherwise you are.

Here’s the first one I can find online from October 2006 when Kirsty had just started on DID:

1* Miles Davis – Flamenco Sketches
2 John Coltrane – A Love Supreme part 1 (Acknowledgement)
3 Marvin Gaye – Mercy Mercy Me (?)
4 Curtis Mayfield – Move On Up
5 The Clash – White Man in Hammersmith Palais
6 Bill Evans – Love theme from Spartacus
7 Bjork – Hyperballad
8 The Doors – The End
Book: Ulysses – James Joyce
Luxury: Mouth organ (with teach-yourself disc and book)

Here’s another go from later the same day, indicative of how impossible the challenge is for anyone who loves music:

1* Miles Davis – Flamenco Sketches
2 John Coltrane – A Love Supreme part 1
3 Marvin Gaye – Mercy Mercy Me
4 Eric Satie – Gymnopedie
5 Bruce Springsteen – Into the Fire
6 Siouxsie & the Banshees – Icon
7 Sinead O’Connor – On Raglan Road
8 Frank Sinatra – One for my Baby

I recently [17th Jan] redid my list (without reference to past efforts of course) on a trip to Berlin with Enfant Terrible No.1 (his choice is further below):
1 Curtis Mayfield – move on up
2 John Martyn – small hours [new entry]
3 Miles Davis – flamenco sketches
4 John Coltrane – a love supreme, part 1
5 Van – in the afternoon [new entry]
6 The Clash – white man
7 Marvin Gaye – what’s going on [change of track]
8 Frank Sinatra – one for my baby
Book: Ulysses – james joyce
Luxury: pencil & notebooks [change]

Given that’s a 9 year gap, remarkably consistent I’d say, with a healthy bit of change. The appearance of John Martyn reflects my gradual realisation (particularly in the wake of his elevation to The Great Gig in the Sky 7 years ago) that he is the best of the best of singers, a Big Soul. Van’s entry simply corrects a big oversight in the 2006 vintage. I probably haven’t nailed the right track yet. The change of Marvin song just indicates I can’t make up my mind which track from What’s Going On to pick out from a perfect LP which doesn’t really compute as individual tracks in isolation.

Tangentially, here’s another variation – Inheritance Tracks – from November of 2007, broadly aligned with my Desert Island choices:

• Inherited Track: ‘Everything’s Alright’ from ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ OR ‘Soolaimon’ by Neil Diamond
• Bequest Track: Miles Davis’ ‘Flamenco Sketches’ from ‘Kind of Blue’

Moving on to the next generation, here’s Enfant Terrible No. 2’s first ever go, aged 6:

1 Madness – Embarrassment
2 Bruce Spingsteen – Atlantic City
3 The Cranberries – Ode to my Family
4 Cornershop – Brimful of asha
5 Max Romeo – I Chase the Devil
6 Trumpton – Windy Miller song
7 The Jam – Batman theme
8 AC/DC – It’s a long way to the top
Book: Claris Bean/My Uncle is a Hunkle
Luxury: My house

That’s some list for a 6 year old – clearly getting a proper musical education! I’ll quiz him in the next couple of days and see how radically his list has changed as a 16 year old. [I’ll insert his 2016 list here:]

To see the significant change of teenagehood, here’s Enfant Terrible No. 1’s first ever go from late 2006, aged 11. He wrote it out in long hand in a notebook, taking several months to pin his choice down (typical of him in its careful consideration):
1 U2 – Vertigo
2 Unite Tribe – Life and Death
3 Oxmo Puccino and the Jazzbastards – Perdre et Gagner
4 The Cure – Love Cats
5 * Michael Franti & Spearhead – Sometimes
6 MC Solaar – Solaar Pleure
7 The Raconteurs – Steady as she goes
8 Nirvana – Smells Like Teen Spirit

I pushed him for a swifter, more spontaneous choice this time:
1 James Taylor – fire & rain
2 The Beatles – lucy in the sky with diamonds
3 Carol King – it’s too late
4 Curtis Mayfield – move on up [paternal influence at work]
5 Bob Dylan – hurricane
6 Nirvana – teen spirit
7 The Doors – riders on the storm
8 Led Zep – stairway to heaven
Book: the odyssey – homer
Luxury: my pillow

So only one track persists over the decade – Smells Like Teen Spirit. That’s the spirit of teen for you. BTW I could happily add Kurt singing Where Did You Sleep Last Night? to my grateful eight:

Best of 2014

20,000 Days on Earth

Film:

20,000 Days on Earth

Selma
Boyhood
The Theory of Everything

Male Lead:
Eddie Redmayne – The Theory of Everything

David Oyelowo – Selma

Nicholas Cage – Joe
Tom Hardy – Locke
Benedict Cumberbtach – The Imitation Game
Ralph Fiennes – Grand Hotel Budapest

Female Lead:
Felicity Jones – The Theory of Everything

Rosamund Pike – Gone Girl

Male Support:
Tim Roth – Selma
Steve Carell – Foxcatcher
Ethan Hawke – Boyhood
Tom Wilkinson – Selma

Female Support:
Patricia Arquette – Boyhood
Sienna Miller – American Sniper

Director:
Richard Linklater – Boyhood

Iain Forsyth & Jane Pollard – 20,000 Days on Earth

Christopher Nolan – Interstellar
Pawel Pawlikoski – Ida
Paul King – Paddington
Yann Demange- ’71

Writer:
Paul Webb – Selma
Paul King – Paddington
Wes Anderson – Grand Hotel Budapest
Anthony McCarten – The Theory of Everything

Production Design:
Grand Hotel Budapest

Visual FX:
Interstellar
Dawn of the Planet of the Apes

Michael Franti & dancer

Single:
(John Newman – Love Me Again)

Album:
Morning Phase – Beck
Tribute – John Newman

With The Artists – Rhythm & Sound
Liquid Spirit – Gregory Porter
(WomanChild -Cecile McLorin Salvant)

Gig:
Van Morrison on launch night of Nell’s Jazz & Blues Club

Michael Franti & Spearhead – Islington Assembly Hall (with D)

John Newman – Empire Shepherd’s Bush
ABC – Lexicon of Love – Theatre Royal Drury Lane
Peter Gabriel – So – Wembley Arena

Play:
A Taste of Honey – Shelagh Delaney – National Theatre, Lyttleton

Fiesta – adapted & directed by Alex Helfrecht – Trafalgar Studios
Oh What a Lovely War – Joan Littlewood & the Theatre Workshop – Theatre Royal Stratford East (Joan Littlewood centenary – with D)
Fings Ain’t Wot They Used to Be – Frank Norman – Theatre Royal Stratford East

Art Exhibition:
Egon Schiele drawings: The Radical Nude – Courtauld

John Craxton – Fitzwilliam, Cambridge
Richard Hamilton – Tate Modern
Abram Games: designing the 20th Century – Jewish Museum, Camden Town
MALBA – Buenos Aires
Museum der bildenden Kunste – Leipzig (with N)

Book: (that I read this year)
Rabbit at Rest – John Updike

Sport:
Germany crushing Brazil at the World Cup (7-1 semi-final)

Jonny May’s try for England against the All Blacks at Twickenham

Event:
Philae probe from European spacecraft Rosetta landing on a comet

Dearly departed:

Joe Cocker
Jack Bruce
Tommy Ramone

Egon Schiele – The Radical Nude

Best of 2013

Best of 2012

Best of 2011

Best of 2010

Best of 2009

Best of 2013

[work in progress]

Film:
The Wolf of Wall Street
The Way Way Back
Gravity

Male Lead:
Leonardo DiCaprio – The Wolf of Wall Street

Female Lead:
Cate Blanchett – Blue Jasmine

Judy Dench – Philomena

Male Support:
Matthew McConaughy – The Wolf of Wall Street

Female Support:
(Sally Hawkins – Blue Jasmine)
(Jennifer Lawrence – American Hustle)

Director:
Martin Scorsese – The Wolf of Wall Street
Alfonso Cuarón – Gravity

Writer:
Nat Faxon & Jim Rash – The Way Way Back

Single:
Love Me Again – John Newman
Down the Road – C2C
Children Go Where I Send Thee – Nick Lowe
Where Are We Now – David Bowie
Get Lucky – Daft Punk
Nothing’s Changed – Tricky (with Francesca Belmonte)
Hang Me, Oh Hang Me – Oscar Isaac

Album:
Quality Street – Nick Lowe
Cecile McLorin Salvant – WomanChild
Big Inner – Matthew E White
False Idols – Tricky
(Lee Perry presents – Candy McKenzie (1977 reissue))

Gig:
Van Morrison at Ronnie Scott’s

Bruce Springsteen at Wembley Stadium (Darkness on the Edge of Town)
The Rolling Stones at Hyde Park
Dexys – One Day I’m Going To Soar – Duke Of York’s Theatre

Play:
Othello at Olivier Theatre

Art Exhibition:
All that is Solid Melts into Air (Jeremy Deller), Manchester

Sport:
Andy Murray winning Wimbledon

Event:
My birthday party – incorporating The Box

Best of 2012

Best of 2011

Best of 2010

Best of 2009

Hooley in Belfast (Day 75)

Writing this one in Terri Hooley’s kitchen with Terri at the table sorting out his Facebook and emails. On the fridge door is a magnet saying “In the kingdom of the blind, the one-eyed man is king”. The weird thing is that is from 4Talent, a Channel 4 talent development initiative I was in charge of establishing in my first years there. It couldn’t have ended up in a more appropriate place after all these years (it must be a good five years old by now, more probably).

I spent the whole of Day 75 in Belfast with Terri, mainly at his Good Vibrations record store on North Street. I picked up a copy of Teenage Kicks there for a fiver. How could you not? – it was on the wall crying out to me. I also picked up a New Order LP with a Saville cover and not much by way of writing – no title or band name as was the Factory way, just FAC153 on the spine.

Terri took me on a tour of the area past the site of Wizard recording studio where Teenage Kicks among other Good Vibes things was recorded. We also went by the site of the Harp Bar, hub of Punk Belfast. We ended in the John Hewitt for a swift pint or three. I’d been there in the past, originally with Peter Logue, then Channel 4’s Man in Northern Ireland, and later with Kev Largey aka KVLR, a (street) artist who I first met through 4Talent – then known as Ideasfactory Northern Ireland – and one of whose pieces appears in Terri’s book Hooleygan.

We headed back to East Belfast to Van territory and Terri’s place to do an interview which was quite revealing about the kind of person Terri is and therefore some of what fuelled his catalysing of Punk in Belfast, which proved to be an important act in the context of the bleak days of The Troubles. He has many things in common with Tony Wilson (and some key differences) but the political dimension and the urgency of need to provide an alternative were particular to Terri’s situation and enabled him to help deliver the Needed Thing at the right time.

As we sat up late partaking of some grapejuice, listening to Stuart Bailie’s show on Radio Ulster (with roots in John Peel), news came on about a failed incendiary device attack in Belfast city centre around the time we were in the Hewitt. Some eejit ended up setting himself on fire. Kingdom of the Blind.

Doing the Box – part 1

I’m having a session with The Box tonight and its 50+ songs as I’ve just made an adjustment to the record-player set-up to increase accessibility (a crafty pull-out shelf) and to usher in a new age of black plastic – the Vinyl Frontier is crossed.

Here’s what I’m listening to and the thoughts prompted/verdicts. Going according to how they sit in the box, so pretty much random order.

Thin Lizzy – Emerald

Started with this B-side after which my friend Eddie named his production company, with which I worked for a couple of very happy years. The song is typical Thin Lizzy, a romantic view of the Hibernian past, epic battles turning green fields red. Phil Lynott was a fascinating character and I love passing his statue off Grafton Street in Dublin, with plectrums attached by fans in homage (I believe it’s been restored recently, though it’s not that old – probably been living the high life and taken plenty of abuse).

Pet Shop Boys –  It’s a Sin 

Always had a bit of an ambivalent attitude to the PSBs. Couldn’t take the Smash Hits roots seriously. This one has a touch of the A-ha synth sound about it but is none the less catchy for that. Jolly and not very sinful or dark.

Sinead O’Connor – Nothing Compares 2 U

How on earth can a vinyl single wow and flutter? – this one does! But nothing can obscure a unique, soulful and beautiful voice like this. It’s not flawless but it is perfect. This song is very difficult to separate from its video which sears itself into the memory with its simplicity and beauty.

Irish Heartbeat – Billy Connolly

Bit of an Irish theme so far (not that surprising given the mix of my friends). This is comedian Billy (who used to make me laugh the minute he opened his mouth, from his accent and attitude alone) doing a Van song, with a Scottish twist when he wheels in the band of bagpipers. It’s a live performance and he gets away with a larger than life approach. (But I’ll take the Van version if push comes to shove.)