Marathon 2: Desert Blues

Still week 2.

30 mins Easy Run (the talking one, no one to talk to.)

Location: Whitby - Links View, Upgang Lane, sea wall, Promenade. 4.5km

Weather: Fine with high cloud, cold wind.

Outfit: 2019 Scarborough 10k shirt, best shorts, black trainers, Colorado souvenir socks.

Music: Etran De L'Aïr: Music From Saharan Whatsapp. 17 mins.

The wind makes white horses on an otherwise calm North Sea. Stumps of an old pier are visible in the sand beneath the pavilion. Everyone is walking a dog - not the same dog. I have to stop twice to avoid treading on pugs.

I'm doing the beach run, a route that EJGH worked out before I joined in running, and which we've both been doing for ten years. My best for this is 25 minutes and a bit. I'm a long way off that pace these days, plus I'm taking it easy as I'm supposed to, so call it half an hour.

Lesson of the day: Don't try to stream music whilst doing the beach run. There's no phone signal at the beach; I already knew this, so I don't know what I was playing at. The plan was to listen to Etran De L'Aïr on the way down, get into a running groove, then follow it with Head Of Light Entertainment's latest EP on the way up, being buoyed along by melodic sunshine pop. A quarter of an hour each way, job done.

As it was, Etran De L'Aïr fell silent just after I reached the sea wall, and didn't re-emerge until I was past the Crescent on the way up - which was a shame because the skittering rhythms were, if not putting me in a trance, then certainly getting me in a good frame of mind to run. Desert blues is mesmeric or it is nothing. Melodies don't go anywhere, a whole song can go on one chord; Etran De L'Aïr favour two chords and a drone with a djembe rattling along in the background. Riffs are endlessly repetitive, yet never played the same way twice. Tiny variations sound momentous. The vocals on this EP are quiet, possibly not miked up. According to liner notes, it was recorded directly onto a phone, then Whatsapped to the record company, hence the title.

I know what this sounds like: first-world business people and white cultural tourists demanding some sort of gritty authenticity from black African performers. Hard to argue with that, except that the music is genuinely meditative, and the performance is really charming.

That's all I have to say. If you're running, this is 17 minutes of good running music.

Click here for Etran De L'Aïr: Music From Saharan Whatsapp.

Marathon 1: Breathe

Part of me has wanted to run the London Marathon ever since I watched it on TV (filling the gap between the Grand National, the Boat Race and the Cup Final) with my dad in 1981. All that business about the Cutty Sark, the desolate Isle of Dogs (younger readers might like to watch The Long Good Friday), the run up the Mall; crowds, people dressed as chickens, a dusty spring Sunday, Dad getting choked up seeing disabled runners hobbling over the line, the first two lads finishing hand-in-hand. Now a list of clichés, it was new then. The part that wanted to do it was a small part of me, a fraction of my cerebral cortex, or possibly my lizard brain; the rest of me thought it a stupid idea. But now I’m living in North Yorkshire where running is a thing that normal people do, I spend a couple of days a fortnight in London, so there’s a connection; I have several Great North Runs behind me, I’m 54 and if I don’t do it this year I never will.

I should pretend this is week 1 of training, but it’s week 2. Week 1 barely counts as anything - 30 mins Easy Run, 20 mins Jog, 60 mins Easy. “Easy” means you can talk while running. I’m running on my own so that would be evidence of a personal problem. Easy running is not really possible in Whitby for more than a few minutes at a time, owing to the hills. Anyway I did it, and it was 20 minutes of jogging more than I do most weeks. My once-beloved grey Nike Airs have deflated, so I’ve got a sore left heel. Arthritic right knee is a given, but it’s OK - wakes me up maybe once a night, but not for long and fine while running. Otherwise injury and disease-free.

Today is 40 mins Steady Run, during which I should be “slightly out of breath; able to talk, but only in shorter sentences,” which reminds me of a lot of people I know.

Location: North London - Regents Park, Camden (picture taken from Primrose Hill).

Weather: Pissing down.

Outfit: Clapton CFC away shirt, second time round shorts, new trainers, Swedish Chef socks, cap (see weather), plasters on nipples (ditto).

Music: Sturgill Simpson: Sound And Fury. 41 mins.

I wanted to like this album. It’s new. It's the right length for the run. It has drums on it, mostly machine-generated, but they play a beat, not the elongated, compressed-to-lifelessness thhhhhhoccck noise that so many artistes employ to indicate that even the act of keeping time is part of a Significant Emotional And Cultural Statement; which means that these drumbeats help me paddle along London’s burst-drain thoroughfares in a running sort of way. I like Sturgill Simpson too. He’s country and he’s smart; note the title of his first album, Metamodern Sounds In Country Music - I mean, come on, the references! This time he is referencing William Faulkner, as all educated southern Americans have to do sooner or later. (Don’t get me started on The Sound And The Fury though. I can’t get started on it - it’s as impenetrable as it is miserable).

The sound is not that of the two-lane blacktop and the Marshall stack; it is that of analogue synths, washy or siren-y, in the vintage style of Düsseldorf, Sheffield and Basildon, overlaid with practice-amp lead guitar, vocals hiding behind the guitar, and nowhere near enough bass. However, try as he might to hide it, the style is mainstream modern country rock. The thing about Sturgill Simpson is that he thinks he’s an alternative to that, but he isn’t. He is just better at it than all the people who give it a bad name. He plays good muscly lead guitar and has the requisite gravel voice of a blue collar American artist; his set-up / knock-down verses are actually funny or moving, rather than sounding as if they’ve been knocked together in a writers’ meeting.

‘Having one-way conversations with the darkness in my mind

He does all the talking 'cause I'm the quiet kind.’ (Remember To Breathe)

There’s a lot of this, stuff that wouldn’t be out of place on, but is a cut above, any workaday country album.

‘Well, you know daddy likes his alone time

That's why he doesn't have any friends

Yeah, but watch and see, you'll be lookin' at me

The last man standing in the end.’ (Last Man Standing)

It would have been nice to have heard words like these when I was running, rather than reading them on the train home (where I’m writing this) having suspected that there was something worth hearing under the distorted squall.

The best-sounding song (Mercury In Retrograde) has the worst lyrics. I won’t quote them, but Taylor Swift got away with stuff like this for years because she was young and female; it doesn’t do for a grown man to be moaning about ‘haters’ wanting his autograph. However there is melody here, and dynamics in the synthesiser lines which are lacking elsewhere.

Got to hand it to him for making the effort though. Sometimes he sounds like Suicide with real songs; most of the time the sound-concept gets in the way of the material.

A shame to start on a downer. Might have been the rain. It’s 30 mins Easy Run tomorrow, so I’ll need to find something short. Might go for an oldie. Wary of getting into the idea that new music = bad, old stuff = good. Sound And Fury isn’t bad; it’s an experiment in breaking out of Nashville musical habits without giving up on Nashville songwriting. I don’t think the experiment worked, but the next one might, and good luck to him.

The new trainers are holding up. They don’t keep out water at all, but my feet were OK at the end, so presumably they “breathe” or do whatever trainers are supposed to do when you splash through mucky rain in them.

More tomorrow.

Sound And Fury

Recyclable Letter

Dear Mr/Mrs (PRIME MINISTER’S NAME)

Excuse me for writing but I think it’s a shame

That we’re bombing (ENTER REGION, COUNTRY OR STATE),

Killing its children and sealing the fate

Of (COUNTRY OR STATE) and its next generation

Who’ll grow up with war as the default situation.

The likely result of our military action

Against (ENTER NATION/ETHNIC GROUP/POLITICAL FACTION)

Will be to make enemies of all who survive

And make it impossible for (COUNTRY/STATE) to thrive.

But at least we’ll have stolen their (ENTER NATURAL RESOURCE),

If you think that’s a good use for the Royal Air Force.

Or perhaps we’re just there to please (ENTER ALLY)

Or to boost (ENTER HOME COUNTRY) internationally

Thus somehow promoting enhanced foreign trade -

As in: “Oi! Buy our goods or else we’ll invade.”

I’m far from convinced that’s the best way ahead

Because people can’t shop or invest when they’re dead.

In conclusion, Sir/Madam/O Great One (NAME OF LEADER),

Before we get caught up in nationalist fever

Can we please hold our horses, then take a deep breath

And not sentence thousands of people to death?

Let’s try to make peace and goodwill our object.

Yours sincerely, love (ENTER OWN NAME) xxx

© Jon Horne 2018

Mark E Smith: The Last Days

And the band, henceforth group, played on.
Hauled up in a dumb waiter, Health and Safety approved,
ranting, chanting, slurring, blurring the line between sense and prejudice,
our hero, henceforth OH, rises, eyes darting right to left, left to right;
one withered hand strapped to the chair as if electric.
The end, the end is literally nigh.

Middle aged punters, male, formative years much formed
by aforesaid OH, cheer briefly, assuming theatrical ploy.
They see the rodent cheeks, the visible fucking agony,
the two microphones positioned to allow OH to fidget
and manoeuvre himself into position
of least pain whilst still vocalising, and gasp.

And the group played on.
Riff number one: bass-led,
guitars trace double-helix pattern,
its DNA of German/Lancastrian CA ancestry producing
regular and these days planned dissonance.

OH wheeled across boards by wife/kyb, b.voc.
Sober-haired hired hands, suntanned arms beneath untorn sleeves.
Planned dissonance. Seconds of eloquence as diamorphine permits.
False teeth provide added bite. Hell to pay, hell to pay for.
Where once OH paced, now slides down the chair, plants feet on boards
and rocks, fractured, enraptured, if only.

Out on the Merch desk, mirthfully self-identified
hobgoblins lay out apparel, yellow vinyl, silver discs
and check for 4G, re: Mobile Pay. Cash tins open
for punters of Luddite sensibility. Cold imperial measure
in plastic glass imbibed. The group plays on,
muffled by fire doors. Planned dissonance.

A steady stream exit. Disgruntled and/or lachrymose, pause at Merch desk
to recall lank-haired pretender, oddly delicate of feature, part-formed;
then newly-polished spokesman in the Colin/AH Wilson vein,
US wife/gtr, b.voc., unwonted solutions
to planned dissonance - cf. No Bulbs.
Both incarnations available on 180g vinyl with shirt XXL.

Riff number two: bodiddley skip, unselfconscious,
blues accidentals permitted, if accidental. Why dissonance?
Why plan? Middle-class revolting suspects fear
of naked written word. Anyone can bark, we say. OH says:
you try, see if your bark gets anywhere
near this one’s bite. That was months ago.

Later, and on the edge of an industrial estate,
briefly in opioid sleep, OH cannot hear the voice
of replicants in Schindler’s lift. Cannot ask what the fuck.
Not that it was ever any better, he might have added.
Wife/non-NHS carer pushes, clicks and holds door,
aids, unzips, unbuttons, lifts immobile arm, places dictaphone
near face for easy access to brain. Capturing all that might escape
in these last days. Damned dissonance.

Clown White (short story)

He took a long, blood-reddening draft of still, salt air. He had been shut away too long in a tiny room whose three walls and scarlet curtain he could touch at arms’ length. Deep orange crenellate clouds made a lush backdrop to the abbey ruin in the windless hour of sunset, but it was too late to be standing around watching clouds. He stretched and exhaled hugely. A little girl, passing, started at the sound and began to cry. A man bent down to comfort the child, then turned to glare. He met the father’s stare and raised an eyebrow. The father shook his head. If one of his victims still feared him outside, he must be doing something right.

There wasn’t time for any of this. He shouldered his duffel bag and half-ran towards the bridge. It was the worst part of the day for visitors; a few of them in a rush, the rest like pillar boxes, and no one going single file - except that, unusually, everyone got out of his way, even if half of them gave him filthy looks. Grateful for small mercies, he smiled at those who let him through, and as he did so, felt a naggingly familiar sensation on his bottom lip. You are kidding, he said to no one but himself, and ducked into an alley which turned into steps leading to a row of holiday cottages. In deep shadows, he removed a set of plastic fangs, and touched his face to feel the baby-soft coolness of Clown White, like touching soap - that and a hint of cherry-flavoured syrup standing in for dripping blood. He hadn’t taken any of it off, although he distinctly remembered doing so. Or was that yesterday? Well obviously it was, he thought, unless it was the day before, or God knows when before that.

No, he had been at work - not jumping out of a cupboard to frighten children, but cooking, then table-waiting - which, he thought again, is where he should be now. He checked himself for cape, syrup-soaked dress-shirt, ghoulish winkle-pickers, or any other day job accoutrements.

Now very late, he crossed the bridge and turned left. La Gourmande At The Red Lion stood bare-beamed and tasteful among the jet shops and tat parlours, like roasted sea bass on a chip shop menu. Hopes of sneaking into the kitchen unnoticed were dashed as he saw Ken outside, finishing off a cigarette.

“I know, Ken, I’m sorry,” he said as he scurried past the chef.

“Hold it right there. No, on second thoughts - Christ, man, what’s that on your face? Just get inside.”

At least it saved him having to serve the public. After twenty minutes Pete/Pierre the head-waiter had to tell the other kitchen staff to grow up and shut up, as their hooting and heckling could be heard in the restaurant. After that, there were only whispers and snorts. Eventually, Ken stepped in.

“Just go and clean it off, and make sure no one sees you. The rest of you, one more word and you’re on notice, all of you.”

Baked on by two hours over a hot gas hob, it took fifteen punishing minutes of Swarfega to shift the makeup. He returned to his post red-faced and sore. Around nine o’clock, as the streets briefly quietened, there was a lull in orders before the last-chance diners filed in. Ken motioned him outside.

“I don’t know what the joke is, lad. I’ve got Pete on my back now.”

“I took an extra shift. I won’t do it again - well I’ve got to do it tomorrow, but I’ll be here on time.”

“Decide what your job is. I’ve been very understanding with you.”

“I know, I know. Tomorrow I promise I’ll be on time.”

“You’d better be, and without the...” Ken mimed blood dripping down the side of his mouth.

An embarrassed smile. “Yeah.”

A series of orders arrived, sparking frantic activity, which only subsided long after the sitting, when the kitchen was cleared and cleaned in preparation for breakfast.

On leaving the restaurant by the back door, he spotted his father and Jeanne crossing the small market square beneath the old town hall. Jeanne’s ponytail swayed. They stopped and kissed. He could, with some effort, have ducked out of sight and waited for them to be on their way before crossing the square himself, but he was too tired for tact. Jeanne tensed and broke off the embrace as he passed.

“’Ello,” she said, dropping the aitch in an accent as cartoonish as her leather jacket and culottes.

“Hello Jeanne. Hello Dad. Been out?”

“Been to your place, son. Impressed by the belly pork, I must say.”

His father took a deep, self-important breath. He glanced at Jeanne, who nodded in agreement and actually licked her lips. He reddened. It alarmed him that he was so pleased that his cooking had won the approval of his father’s pouting, olive-skinned girlfriend. He wished it was because she was French and knew decent food when she tasted it.

“I didn’t know you’d been in.”

His father pulled Jeanne even closer and touched the top of her head with his chin.

“I thought I’d treat her tonight. Didn’t I, darling? It worked out well. The top was like fine pastry - salivant, you might say. Very good indeed.”

After all the face-scrubbing earlier on, his forced smile was not just figuratively painful. A long silence ensued, broken at last by Jeanne, who said: “Well, goodnight. We shall see you soon, yes? Come for dinner, I will cook.”

“Thanks, yes, I’ll do just that.”

“Goodnight, son.”

‘"’Night Dad.”

So now she’s inviting people round for tea; there’s a development, he thought. He turned around briefly as he continued across the square. They were facing away from him. His father was pointing at something. He had his other hand in Jeanne’s back pocket.

How like himself, he thought miserably, to begrudge his father the pleasure of an exotic woman with a perfectly rounded bottom to grope in full view of anyone who wanted to look.

They might, like pilgrims or tourists, have been be about to climb the abbey steps; or else there was the east pier with its lapping waves and romantic sense of isolation, and still no more than a light breeze to disturb them. They were more likely standing in the middle of the square in order to allow him a head start, since all of them lived on the other side of the river, and had to cross the same small bridge to get home. He hurried onward.

By the time he had climbed the hill, to the once grand house in which he had a tiny studio flat, the fresh air had put him in better spirits. Although tired, he carried on to the end of the road, to the cliff edge. Rabbits scattered and disappeared into their warren. On the horizon, cargo ships fought the current towards the Tees. Until the morning, when he would be Dracula in clown white, fangs and a cape, and in the evening, cook.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Written for the Writers Write 12 Short Stories challenge, Jan.2018

_______

Gem Or Ashtray? (L-M)

Lick - Come / Shirtlifter. If you Google this, I recommend Parental Control. I'm sure I saw this lot, sometime in the late Paleozoic. Guitar line like Cannonball by the Breeders, vocal like almost anything by the Manic Street Preachers. Average. A shame because it's on their own label, catalogue number LICK001 and everything. Ashtray.

Linx - So This Is Romance. Obviously a keeper, but being ruthless I was going to chuck the ones I had on LP, particularly when the B-side is just an instrumental. Good job I checked, because a) it's not on the Intuition LP, and b) the lyrics are cornier than a tin of Niblets, so having the instrumental is a good thing.

Living In Texas - And David Cried. A white label from my brother's old studio, so this isn't going anywhere. However I haven't heard it in years, so... This is as of-its-time as a Flanagan and Allen 78 or a Grateful Dead quadruple LP. Joy Division drums anchor wandering bass and sax. Pootles along in a spacey fashion until the singer incants: "And David cried" repeatedly at the end. The B-side An Dem Bahnhof (nice use of the dative - we're not going to the station, are we?) consists of ranted verses interspersed with the title, accompanied by lo-fi synths. Could be The Normal, stroppy Gary Numan, or anyone from 1984 who had been listening to Kraftwerk. Well I like it. Can't find it on YT so here's another of their songs.

Manfred Mann - 5 4 3 2 1. When I was 12, we went on a swimming-club tour of Scotland. One of the lads I was billeted with gave me this, which at the time I thought was nice of him. Only now does it occur to me that it must have been his Dad's record. So familiar that I thought I'd check if it was any good. Blaring out in mono, it chugs along much better than it does on nostalgia radio. Labelled on the sleeve with my John Bull printing set.

The Maytals - Walk In Love. Intense. Why haven't I been playing this? On the instrumental track B-side, Toots Hibbert's vocal bleeds into everything; must have been recorded live.

Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia - No Cigar. Intense in another way. Scared-sounding woman narrates a short story indistinctly over a malevolent bolero of up-the-neck bass and swirly organ. Like an episode of Silent Witness when it was still good. It's on YT but Blogger won't let me link to it for some reason. Here's another MBICR track.

JC Messina - Time Won't Let Me. Back at the turn of the 90s we used to go out to the Black Horse pub between Aston Uni and Duddeston on Friday nights. Upstairs was indie city: Charlatans, Mondays, Primal Scream, and choice oldies, most particularly a track the DJ (maddeningly I've forgotten his name) wouldn't name, and which in pre-internet days you couldn't just Google. On the last night he told us that our favourite track was Time Won't Let Me by The Outsiders, a mid-60s US band. There y'go. This is not that. I couldn't resist buying a cover version of it, which now that we do have Google turns out to be a northern soul 'classic'. Either immeasurably valuable or a dodgy bootleg. By the awful sound, it must be the latter. Great track though. Weird and creepy B-side called Nice And Easy. "Don't matter to me if her face is too bad but it matters to me if her body's been had." Ick.

Mo-Dettes - Paint It Black. Awful cover version, saved by the much better B-side, Bitta Truth; also the fact that I saw them at Grimsby Central Hall and like having a souvenir. Here's White Mice instead.

Gem Or Ashtray (J-K)

Jefferson Airhead - Scrap Happy. A baggy gem.

Johnny and the Hurricanes - Rockin' Goose. From a job lot at the car boot. It rocks. It makes goose noises. Obviously a keeper.

Grace Jones - Demolition Man/Warm Leatherette. As 80s as Margaret Thatcher fronting Cameo, which is what this sounds like. Better than you'd think.

KC And The Sunshine Band - Sound Your Funky Horn. Gem. Next.

Dave Kelly - Return To Sender. Blues bands bore the pants off me, partly because they're all the same, but mostly because I've never heard one to match the Dave Kelly Band at the Sub in Cleethorpes on (squints) 19th January 1983, probably not at 8.00 pm. One of the last nights I was able to drink illegally.

The version of Return to Sender is pretty dull, to be honest. The B-side is a good country-rock original, Dawn Surprise. I'm keeping it because I don't know where else to keep my ticket signed by DK and the (late great) sax player John Irish Earle.

Kingmaker - Eat Yourself Whole. The Wonderstuff without the wit, tunes or bounce. Ashtray.

June Kingston - Say You. I want to like this. JK used to be in the Mo-Dettes, who I saw when I was 16, and then she was the other voice on Our Lips Are Sealed. But no. Ashtray.

Kid Creole and the Coconuts - I Am. A Coati Mundi gem.

Bo Kirkland and Ruth Davies - You're Gonna Get Next To Me. Great backing track, but the he-says-she-says vocal has all the drama of an episode of The Archers. B-side is better. If you like it, look in the MIND shop on Flowergate.