We Are Augustines and Admiral Fallow - Next Big Thing?

Londoners have been besieged by cold for a week now. It may seem silly to whinge about cold in London of all places, however after our delightfully temperate winter we were not prepared for the frostiness to come. Before last week I had not double scarved or stockinged once, and now I am festooning myself with woollies every time I step outside.

And so, with chattering teeth and blue lips, we descended into the chilly gullet of Borderline just of Charing Cross Road to witness two hopeful Next Big Things. But by the time we had wrapped a raw paw around an over priced cider the cockles of our hearts were being warmed by the folky arrangements of Admiral Fallow. A wonderful Glaswegian indie outfit, with a delightfully sweet sound which is rounded by flutes, clarinets and tambourines, their sweet sounds soon flushed my cheeks and brought the feeling back to my toes as I began to tap them. Perhaps it’s a peculiar pleasure of mine, but I really love being able to hear a singer’s accent in their singing, and singer/songwriter Louis Abbott sounds so delightfully Scotland, he makes me miss my wonderful Scottish family. With his big bushy beard it is somewhat surprise that any of his singing actually reaches us, however it does, and this melodic voice combined with his sort of jerking motions about the stage, and humorous self-deprecation between songs, made for a very likable character. They ended with an acoustic version of Four Bulbs, which was absolutely exquisite and gave me the shivers I had managed to shed half an hour before.

So if you like Mumford and Sons, Noah and the Whale and the like, then Youtube these guys because they are a real treat.

Nicely warmed by the folkstars the crowd headed to the bar to replenish drinks before returning to their spots, determined to secure a good view for the main attraction. We, like many, were there to see We Are Augustines. From New York city, I last saw them in December where they blew me away with a free gig at The Wheelbarrow, and I was anxious that they should show me that same power again. For a three piece band (guitarist Billy McCarthy, bassist Eric Sanderson and drummer Rob Allen), they make a helluva lot of noise – it seems like there should be ten of them up there – and by the end of their performance you do indeed feel that they have nothing left to give, they are sweating and messy and spent, it’s wonderful to watch. With a slightly bigger stage available to them at The Borderline, their show was a lot more physical, with McCarthy flinging himself about the place, careening into mic stands and amps and his band mates, performing with the same passionate that he channelled to write his music. The Augustine’s album, Rise ye Sunken Ships, is based largely around events leading up to the death of McCarthy’s brother who suffered with drug problems and schizophrenia, and every performance seems to be soaked in the desperation and pleading of that period so that each song is emotionally charged. As my friend Tim (an ace BS detector) said: ‘I detect no Bullshit here’. Their live set seemed almost painfully honest, driving home the songs on the album with an edge of anxiety that cannot be faked.

But despite the heavy issues dealt with on Book of James and their other songs, they do not stray from the making of solid Rock ‘n Roll. Stuff that makes you bop and bounce and lash about. They sweat, and demand that the crowd do. Songs that sounds quite calm on the record are thrashed out, whipping the audience into a frenzy. They follow in the footsteps of Bruce and Tom Petty – great songwriters putting together great music with pounds upon pounds of passion. Needless to say by the end of the gig, we were well warmed up.

Listen to these guys if you like The Gaslight Anthem, Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, or Bruce Springsteen.

Review(ish): Pixies and Starboys

Who doesn't love a freebie? If it's gratis I'm there like a bear. This is the reason I have done a lot of things I wouldnt usually - because if I haven't shelled out for it I don't discern. This is a good thing - it opens me up to a multitude of experiences that I would never have had. It meant a couple of years ago I got to see Britney Spears in all her lip synching, costume changing, booty shaking glory. And I enjoyed it (okay this enjoyment may have been trebbled by the shooting off of a glitter cannon at the end - my first experience of one) despite myself. It was a spectacle. A show. Everything a pop concert should be.

So when my housemate proffered Pixie Lott tickets for free, I thought why the hell not. I could do with a bit of razzle dazzle, some glitter and a lot of zany outfits.

Now this freebie stuff is not all fun and games - if I am going to do something I will do it properly and so there was homework to be done. Pixie Lott is a familiar name and face from the papers, but I couldn't have told you one song she sang, so I plugged her name into YouTube and went for the play list. Frothy pop tunes emmited from my laptop, her little girl lost voice sometimes drowned amongst the dischord that is modern pop. And it seemd Pixie has an aversion to trousers of any kind as in each she bopped about in most of the videos in a leotard with elaborate sleeves. Hmmm...

But with my 'try everything once' mindset fixed firmly in place, off I went to see Pixie Lott. She was playing at the Kentish Town HMV Forum. My lovely friends Jo and Anna were my companions for the evening. After establishing we were at least 10 years older than everyone in the standing area we headed up to the seats, away from the tide of adolesence.

The opening act was Starboy Nathan - should I be mortified to say I don't know who this fellow is? In complete ignorance when we heard his name we actually took bets as too what he might look like and what he might sing. I felt even more out of touch with the youth when they joined in to his choruses, chanting away with the fervour of the initiated. How to describe his act? To be honest it wasn't a performance or style of music that appealed to me - all synchronised moves, pubescent thrusting and plaintive crooning. But that is not to say he is not good at what he does. Having watched snippets of this year's X Factor offerings over the last two weeks I notice that while most of them have some talent - they can sing or dance - in a cruel irony what they are all missing is the X Factor. And this is why even the winners, despite getting launched on an international platform, having a guaranteed #1 written for them, and Simon Cowell's media machine behind them, all fade into obscurity. So, using X Factor as my only real mainstream pop barometer, I will say that Starboy Nathan has the star power that seems so conspicously absent from the show's contestants. He has presence, which is more than I can say for most of those vapid Cowell creations. It seems no matter how much cash you throw at it that X Factor, much like love and class, is something money can't buy.

So onto the main act. As you already know my Pixie knowledge was lacking, and from the bits I had seen online I was prepared to be under whelmed. But she endeared herself to me early by skipping on stage bare foot, and donning little cat ears. She launched into her set with a trio of dancey numbers, all a bit over produced and consumer driven if you ask me, but the swirly light show was mesmirising. In between she chatted to the audience in a rather endearing way, and I was impressed that she was in an outfit that covered her bits for once - a short, black, backless dress, with a sequined Peter Pan collar and sleeves. I think I might describe it as evening Alice in Wonderland couture.

After the dancey numbers she slowed down into some more soulful numbers and I was pleased to hear she actually has a lovely voice. There was no lip synching, and without the computer generated cacophany of the faster songs her voice was impassioned and quite stirring. Cry Me Out is an impassioned ultimatum song. All around women were pounding their fists, flinging their hands out in diva stance and belting out the chorus and I realised that this was an act usually performed in front of bedroom mirrors and into hair brushes. Moving smoothly into Mama Do the atmosphere was transformed with an air of rebellion and defiance as she song of forbidden love. All quite generic and well worn, but again I was impressed by her singing ability and her unpretentious performance.

While it wasn't quite the big drums and guitar riffs I favour it was an interesting and I suppose some what educational evening. My only complaint - Pixie only had one outfit! Take some lessons from Britney... I was there for feathers and rhinestones!

The Wonder of the World

I am a musical aficianado of sorts, an obsessive appreciator. I can talk musical history, appreciation, origins, even throw in a few technical terms, but that is where my musical ability ends - in appreciation, not creation. I am not adding to the catalogue, I am not making music, I am not furthering the cause. I play no musical instrument and hence keys and chords mystify me and I look upon those who know a major from a minor with an air of reverance and more than a little envy.

And so with this sense of enigma in mind, I set off with a friend to find him a guitar. After looking in a catalogue, and deciding that a £60 Argos guitar with complimentary carry case was totally un-rock 'n roll, we headed to Denmark Street. Located behind Tottenham Court Road station, it is like Harry Potter's Diagon Ally - a hidden gem lined with guitar shops and musical book stores.

From the windows of half a dozen shops gleam the wood and paint of every type of 'axe'. Electric and acoustic jostle for elbow room and my eyes darted back and forth, taking in metallic paint jobs, inlaid wooden roses, straggles of strings and pedals ripe for pushing. Outside most of the shops a rock veteran or two lurk, pinching their cigarettes between calloused, nicotene stained fingers.

Some of the stores cater purely to the professional, and they smirk at our beginners uncertainty, but others patiently take down Fender after Fender and encourage us to hold them, pluck them, strum them. Shyly we make our first tentative sounds, listening to the difference in woods, in strings, in necks. We know nothing and yet nod appreciatively as one after the other's sound is described to our novice ears.

They are beautiful, and I feel like I am at the pound and should take each and every one of them home. I wonder which ones will belong to owners who will take a few lessons and cast them aside, and which ones will be used to sing a lullabye, write the next Stairway to Heaven or smashed in a fit of punk rage. I hope they will comfort lost adolescents and be toted belovedly across countries, and that they will be used to make more great rock 'n roll so an appreciator like me can keep appreciating. My friend didn't buy the guitar that day, decisions like this take time. But it looked so comfortable in his arms I hope he does soon.

"Years will come, years will go and politicians will do fuck all to make the world a better place. But all over the world young men and young women will always dream dreams and they will put those dreams into song...in future years there will be so many fantastic songs...they will be written, they will be sung, and they will be the wonder of the world..."

- The Count in The Boat that Rocked

The Beatles vs The Rolling Stones

The tide of the long weekend has receeded, leaving behind the detritus of four days spent in and and out of every pub in South West London. Among the empty bottles, broken records and cigarette ends however floats an eternal question. Raised in the early hours of some god forsaken morning, it caused the same flared tempers, frayed nerves and impassioned speeches it has been illiciting for decades... That's right kids, it's the big one:

The Beatles or The Rolling Stones?

The inner torment this question poses to the undecided is indescribable. Angie or Elenor Rigby? Ruby Tuesday or Penny Lane? Paint it Black or Yellow Submarine? My mother singing sweetly to her namesake (Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds), my aunt in throes of excitement over the cheek of Jagger in a lace dress in Hyde Park circa 1969. Kurt's greatest influence being The Beatles, ensuring that Nirvana had a melodious quality without which their music would have descended into cacophonic chaos, and while Punks like to believe they had distanced themself from produced Rock, The Clash and The Sex Pistols both site The Stones as heavy influences. Where would we be without London Calling? How could I live without Nevermind?

The Beatles changed everything - they took the mundane and made it special, their music made all the little things, the every day, into art, so that not only their lives took on a fabled new meaning but so do ours. Penny Lane was a junction in Liverpool where Lennon and Mc Cartney met to catch a bus into town, while Strawberry Fields was the name of a Salvation Army Children's home around the corner from where Lennon grew up. Yet they are both in Our Ears and in Our Eyes, There Beneath the Blue Suburban Skies. Starting a revolution so in keeping with their generation, they believed that All We Needed was Love - the little hippy corner of my heart still believes they were right. Later they took the world on guided psychedelic tours of their souls, through Tangerine Trees and Marmalade Skies. They urged us to Come Together, they asked us to Let It Be. When I want to escape, when I want to understand, when I want to ask questions and hear answers and find myself in another time they are who I choose.

The Rolling Stones are a rolling sexual revolution. Nothing is more convincing of the raw sexual magnatism of Rock and Roll than the fact that men and woman have drooled over that motley crew of misfits for generations. Granted, the first thing that springs to mind when looking at Mick Jagger's lips is fellacio, but still - the music turned them all into the most unlikely of sex gods. The plaintive notes of Jaggers voice make me want to Try and Cry for Angie, and make me Miss Ruby Tuesday. With his urging I would go out and Paint It, Black, and even if I Can't Always Get What I Want, If I Try Some Times, I Just Might Find, I Get What I Need. The Stones take you where you want to go, but probably couldn't go by yourself. Jagger's highly sexed mewling teamed with the hedonism that is Richards unite to make every base instinct, every buried desire okay, in fact commendable. And so I choose them when I want to get lost, when I want to drown, when I want to be free.

And there you have my argument - perhaps less lucid when slurred out at 5 in the morning while being chased around the kitchen by a mad man with a metaphorical gun urging me to CHOOSE, but no less fraught and heart felt. Why should I have to choose?

They are both so eternal for me, both so necessary. So I shan't...SO there!

Long live Queen

Sorry about the crappy photo it was taken with my phone

Music has always coloured every era and every experience for me. From my earliest memories there is a soundtrack strumming in the background of everything I have seen, done, felt. Those who grow up with music can never be cured of the addiction. We need to be surrounded by sound in all that we do.

When I was a mini there was music everywhere - we listened to that radio on the way to school in the mornings, and alternated between Rod Stewart and Neil Diamond in the evenings, so that I travelled home with Maggie May and sweet Caroline. Weekend mornings the house was filled with Abba and The Beatles, Crowded House, The Rolling Stones and Led Zepplin. My dad told me tales of Elvis and Pavarotti, my auntie indocrintated me for hours with Bruce Springsteen and Tom Petty, and my cousin made a shrine for Guns and Roses. I chose Kylie Minogue and Jason Donovan for myself in the early years, and later Alanis Morissette, The Cranberries and Nirvana.

But growing up the main source of music, and what it meant, was at parties. My mum had a riot of ridiculous and wonderful friends whose thirties were their glory days. On the weekends the gardens and bedrooms of suburban homes would be crawling with children hiding and seeking, chasing and catching, playing and squabbling, while downstairs the 'adults' cranked the tunes and let the good times roll.

Parties would start with Roxette, Bryan Adams, Bon Jovi, and then roll on to Dire Straits, were air guitar was obligatory. Fleetwood Mac and The Beach Boys would jostle for air time with Roy Orbison and Chuck Berry, and mixed CDs of greats would have you taken from Eric Clapton to Bob Marley in minutes.

And just when everyone should have been going to bed, the night would kick up a gear as a theatrical thrill poured out of the speakrs and made its way through the house - someone had found the Queen catalogue.

Freddie Mecury's voice has a hypnotic quality - all in its thrall are immediately turned into pouncing, posing, mincing, majestic rock stars. It's (a kinda) magic - there is no stopping it. Suddenly you are all platform heels and glitter, feather boas and operatic delivery, you are Brian May's 'fro and his electric guitar. Confidence flies through you harder than any line of cocaine and you are strutting and pouting through every song. This is the power of Queen.

They are part of a select group of bands whose songs I knew every word to before I could possibly be expected to understand what they were singing about. I heard them through walls when I was supposed to be sleeping, I crept down stairs to listen to them when parties had exploded. Watching the peculiar and fantastic dancing it inspired I longed to be part of the rock 'n roll tribe my parents and their friends had all been initiated into. There is no party Freddie can't fix, no mood he can't soften.

And so with this emotional attachment to Queen, this belief that they are mine, that they were a birth rite, I went to see Stormtroopers in Stilettos. The exhibition was set up in a warehouse just off Brick Lane and was an installation piece with a space dedicated to each of Queens first 4 albums.

It was wonderfully executed, a multi media indulgence in the extreme, with video, audio, photographs, letters, costumes, quotes from Queen members and other musicians. It was immersive - as though you had slipped back into their sequinned, irreverant, ridiculous world for a little while. In the beginning you read tales of Freddie just hanging around this fringes of the hipster/glam rock scene, watching Hendrix night after night all over London, sewing all his own costumes and singing at student parties. Imagining that life made me want to trade everything in for a flat in Shoreditch and a pocketful of rhinestones.

As you move through the space you are aware of their music developing, they draw more and more on the theatre that would become their trademark, experiment with every type of rock, and you listen as Freddie gains the confidence and depth in his voice that Rock hasn't seen since.
The exhibition it beautfully and lovingly put together, by people who obviously new and loved Queen and their music. There is so much to read, to watch to absorb I wish I had gone more than once and taken more time. Its a sensory treat for anyone, but for a real fan its a feast of information and a window into a band (and a time) gone. I left feeling full and overwhelmed by their magnitude, but also very sad that I could never see them in all their live glory. Long live Queen!

Almost Famous - Day One, My Favourite Song

Okay, the truth is I have gotten a little lazy over here lately. I get distracted by the (lame) machinations of so called 'real' life and forget the pure joy of chronicling my random little thoughts and experiences. Sometimes thinking of something to write seems like a chore, and so to get me back into the swing of things I am taking a little tip from the lovely Steph and decide to do the 30 Days Tag challenge. Basically I have a prescribed list of topics, of a personal nature, that I am going to blog on - one post per day. So wish me luck kids...Here goes Day One:

Tiny Dancer - Elton John

My favourite song is Tiny Dancer by Elton John. My mum, a lovely lady with dubious taste in music, has long been a fan of the self proclaimed 'pink poof' and I grew up with many of his legendary lyrics floating around my home and indoctrinating me to love the ballad. However, not until I watched Almost Famous did I realise that one of his songs was in fact my favourite. I think Tiny Dancer's association with the movie is what sealed it for me. This is a film about a bunch of girls in the seventies who have let go of everything that society expected of them and followed their passion (frequently that passion led them to the beds of rockstars, but have you seen Billy Crudup and Jason lee? I'm not complaining). They wear great clothes, listen to great music, take pictures on polaroids, and call themselves BandAids. The scene on the bus, when they begin singing Tiny Dancer is one of my favourite in movie history. It's about solidarity and friendship and acceptance and its one of those moments that if you are part of it you will remember forever. When William Miller tells Penny Lane 'I have to go home' and she replies 'You are home'. I have this feeling that if I was there I would be home too. It has inspired my best friend and I to call each other Ruby Tuesday and Tangerine Tree respectively, and makes one of my greatest dreams to follow a band around for a summer...All that from a song...

As if it wasn't great enough already, Dave Grohl then bestowed his blessing on the tiny song by playing a ridiculous version on a US Talk Show. Greatness.

Isle of Wight 2010

Sorry about the silence. There has been rather a lot of work related drama over here, and this has caused my creative endeavours to take a bit of a back seat, not a good thing when the catharsis of writing is what keeps one sane! Anyway, since we last 'spoke' I have had a rather large adventure, my favourite type of adventure in fact. A weekend of song, sun and silly outfits all round at the Isle of Wight festival.

I have long wanted to go to this particular festival as it is the godfather of the English festival. It is the setting of one of the greatest Rock 'n Roll moments of all time. In 1970 Jimi Hendrix played to 600 000 people on the Isle of Wight, in his last major performance. Jimi came on round midnight to give everything he has left to give. Within three weeks he would be dead. Opening with a distorted version 'of ‘God Save The Queen’, he looks troubled, but sung and played with what has been described by some as a savage grace'. Someone sets the stage on fire after his set, like a wake for the 1960s. After Jimi's performance, and the havoc wreaked on the Island by its 600 000 hippie guests, the Isle of Wight would not host a festival for another 32 years.

The festival is now pretty corporate with its Marlboro only cigarette booths, ITV sponsorship and exclusive sale of Carling, however the energy of the crowd is reminiscent of its optimistic hippie ancestors. An older audience means less surly, stand offish teens, and more ridiculous twenty something eager to learn from the free spirited community left in their parent's generation. There were many a tie dyed sexagenarian floating around in a Debbie Harry bubble of euphoria as Blondie blasted the crowd with hits that don't seem to have aged at all, and ladies in their fifties were launched onto the shoulders of graduates as we all bemoaned our Hearts of Glass. Paternal types disseminated baby wipes to grossed out twenty five year olds as we all waited in the queues for lavatory facilities that at best could be described as short long drops (ick). Everywhere I looked were society's escapees, doused in glitter, sucked into Lycra, be-wellied and ready to rock out to anything from The Strokes to Crowded House. I bought a flower garland to wear in my hair, and was only too charmed when a spaced out lady wearing a hemp dress asked me if I had found Robin Hood yet, because I looked just like Maid Marion.

Maid Marion??

Londoners who would normally be found shouting at an overzealous commuter gave up on charging their iPhones (myself included), and instead of recording every moment on their cameras gave in to the experience and chatted to the person next to them as they queued for cider or basic sanitation. The sun shone for us, and by the time Paul McCartney took up the stage on Sunday it didn't matter that the heavens opened. In fact it was a blessing, as it served to wash away the wee that some ingrate had found it necessary to hurl into the crowd. My companions on this adventure, Tiff and Lara, were rather revoltingly splattered, but god bless the healing (and cleansing powers) of a Beatle, for after being severely anti-bacterialed, they continued to bop, and get their Hey Jude on.

Happy kids, even post the pee incident...

Sir McCartney was unbelievable. He showed himself to be every bit the Rock/Pop veteran as he charmed the crowd. I wept as he sang Here Today a tribute to John Lennon, and I felt my heart would burst forth from my chest as 45 000 people beseeched Jude not to make it bad. I am still a bit awed that I saw a Beatle, and floated for the rest of the night on that thought. After Paul left us with Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, we danced in the rain in ridiculous disposable ponchos and I couldn't think how it was possible to be any happier at that moment. Despite my dose of Year 2000 cynicism, and my inability to go an hour without sarcasm, I can't help but feel like those hippies were onto something with all their Peace and Love and Rock 'n Roll.

Mixed Tape Track 6 - Lucky Soul

It's been a bit of a harrowing week. There has been a lot of sadness and indecision in the world of the gypsy, and with the arrival of the weekend (and the sun), things have certainly gotten better, but traces of the week's melancholy remain. This sombre mood has of course resulted in a solemn playlist. And so, a sad addition to our mixed tape...

Baby, I'm broke - Lucky Soul

This track comes from my latest obsession, Lucky Soul. A London band, I was fortunate to catch the launch of their second album at Cargo in April. I was properly impressed. A polished performance by a band that still retained a sense of wonder at having some of the crowd sing along with them. Lead singer Ali Howard has an abundance of charm to go with her little girls voice, and was somewhat Debbie Harry's debutante sister - Debutante Harry if you will.

Generally their music is pretty upbeat and cheerful, so the plaintive Baby I'm Broke might not be the best introduction to Lucky Soul, and I will attempt to post a few more of my favourites when a little cheerier, but for now...

"Baby I'm broke,

Nothing to lose,

I want you to help but, baby, you're cruel.

And talking to you,

I might as well just throw my head back and howl at the moon.

Yeah, for all the good it will do...

But baby, you're strange,

You're heart's all a flutter

You head's in the sky, but your mind's in the gutter."

Hayley and the Machine

Finally I got to see Florence and the Machine in a big solo show. She overawed me last night at the Hammersmith Apollo, with her huge show(wo)manship, and even bigger voice. Florence is totally worth falling in love with...Haunting voice, beautiful red hair, more energy than I expend in a week with each song.

Being the biggest show she has ever performed in London, we were spoiled with an entire string section, a choir and a HARP. She handled the crowd with an amazing blend of gratitude and arrogance. Listening to the songs from Lungs tumbling out of her with (if possible) even more emotion than on the album made me see even more vividly her world of emotion turned gothic fable. Her voice blew the cobwebs out of every corner of the Apollo, and out of my brain, and from the croaking of her voice when she chatted to the audience between songs, she gave everything and a little bit more to make the evening both familiar and riveting. Apart from the plain and simple fact that she is awesome, there is a reason I am so transfixed by Florence, her power and femininity, the tales she tells through her music, the mythical nature of her lyrics and melodies.

Anyone who knows me, or indeed has been following this blog, will know that music is central to my very existence. I sit in my office all day listening to the radio, I iPod in and out of work, bopping along to anything from the Foo Fighters to Edith Piaf. I have eclectic, but definite taste in music. Music is an instinctive pleasure, based on feeling, memory and submersion. It is also subjective. Different music speaks to me at different times.

In my ebullient late teens I felt a great affinity with the ultimate feel-good anthem “I’m Walking on Sunshine” by Katrina and the waves, I have wept through the end of many eras with Time of your Life by Green Day on repeat, my dear friend Julie and I once listened to Vampire Weekend compulsively in the car to cheer us up after a completely disastrous weekend that included a car wreck and missing out on a music festival), and who hasn’t stared rather self indulgently into a mirror, mascara running down cheeks ala Gene Simmons, with the mournful tones of Damien Rice as the soundtrack to any range of life crises.

Yes music has the capacity to heal and help us, as well as the ability to immediately transport us back to the time and place it became poignant. Sometimes that can be painful, sometimes redemptive, always powerful. Music has saved me many times in my life. A song or an album has proven to me I am not alone in feeling the way I do, comforted me when I was staring into the rather black abyss of depression, kept me company during nights of insomnia, given me the vicarious power I need to get through the day.

And so, my latest saviour comes in the form of fire headed fay Florence. Florence and her wonderful Machine gave me a soundtrack to a year of exploration, loneliness, loveliness and learning. Moving to London was one of the hardest decisions of my life, and one of the most necessary. That is for an array of reasons, which I may go into one day, but not now. 2009 was a year of reconnections with my roots, in the form of my beloved family, of rediscovery as I learnt who I was away from a group of friends who had become a family, and of reunions as I returned to a group of friends. All of this came with a triumphs and challenges, and the unavoidable melancholy of missing people and making change. But through it all I had Florence promising me that “the dark days were over”, the empowering Drumming song setting up a tribal chant in my heart, reminders that I need to become “Lion Hearted” and not “Rabbit Hearted”, and I couldn’t help but recognise the ghost “in my lungs…that sighs in my sleep, Wraps itself around my tongue, As it softly speaks. Then it walks, then it walks with my legs, To Fall, To Fall, To Fall, at your feet.” Walking through London’s crowds, in underground tunnels all over the city I felt the emancipation of admitting that “My fingers crawl your skin, try to tempt my way in, You are the moon that makes the night for which I have to Howl…”

And so after the stirring journey, of seeing my early London anthems sung by their mistress, I couldn’t help but have a very small weep as she sung the words, “The stars, the moon, they have all been blown out, You left me in the dark. No dawn, no day, I'm always in this twilight, In the shadow of your heart.”

Thank you Florence.

All you need is love...and The Beatles

I have finally made the ultimate pop pilgrimage. I spent the weekend in Liverpool paying homage to the Beatles. It was like going on a second honeymoon and falling in love all over again. Being there on the streets that they walked, seeing the things they must have seen, dancing in the Cavern Club – it was all kind of surreal. I have loved them for so long that I kind of forgot why. It’s natural – of course you love the Beatles. But when I was there reading all their history, and imagining what it was like, I began to appreciate their upbeat naivety anew.

Their early music was cheerful and positive and hopeful in such an un-self conscious way, totally unspoiled and pure. It’s strange to try and comprehend how ordinary they were in so many ways, and how extraordinary as well. Walking past their modest homes, seeing Strawberry Fields, and Penny Lane, you desperately look for the key to what set these men apart from their contemporaries…where their sparks of genius came from. But at the end of the day Penny Lane is just a road sign, Strawberry Fields just another wooded area, and the Cavern one of thousands of clubs just like it. Like putting on John’s glasses on - It’s no use, unless you have his eyes. They saw everything differently, and the only way to appreciate that is through their music, where they try to show us what they see.

I find this sort of tourism strange – trying to recapture an age, or walk in someone’s shoes. A life is intangible – you can’t measure it or recreate it. However, Liverpool is very proud of being the birthplace of the Beatles, as proud as the Beatles were to have come from there. 60 000 people visit Liverpool every year in search of the Beatles story. And Liverpool caters to it. But in the understated English way - this is no Graceland. The Cavern club has been restored to its former glory (meaning very little glory – unplastered brick tunnels, merely adorned with photos of the hundreds of acts that have played there, including many of the fab four). Unfortunately it now appears to be frequented by dress wearing stags and tiara totting hens, in various stages of uproar and disarray. However, the club has a very good house band called The Cavemen, who regularly trot out Beatles tunes (much to the endless horror of the staff I’m sure) and with the familiar melodies ringing through my head I couldn’t help but tingle at the thought that this was were it had all started.

Opposite the Cavern club Mathews Street displays a primitive and odd shrine to the ‘Four Boys Who Shook the World’. Mary holding three angels representing the Beatles (the fourth babe, representing Paul, went missing years ago but was recently returned anonymously, by someone who called it a childish prank – it is yet to be returned to the monument.) The memorial is oddly organic, and after the assassination of John Lennon another cherubic figure was added which carries a guitar and is surrounded by a halo with the words, "Lennon Lives".

Further into Cavern Quarter sits dear Eleanor Rigby, a solitary figure on a bench, dedicated eternally to all the lonely people. Her face, which must still be kept ‘in a jar by the door’, is shapeless. She was a labour of love by the sculptor Tommy Steele, who placed a number of objects inside the figure, "so she would be full of magical properties". They were an adventure book (for excitement), a page from the bible (for spiritual guidance), a clover leaf (for good luck), a pair of football boots (for action) and a sonnet (for love).

Feeling in a particularly reflective mood, the trip was tinged with a certain melancholy. The Beatles were ‘just a pop band’ but there is no doubt that they changed the world. Their messages, their style, their causes, still ring as true today. It seems so sad that they are no more. The loss of John Lennon, such a profoundly different pioneer, I felt all over again. To lose him to violence seemed an intolerable cruelty. To lose anyone to violence is intolerable. As our train chugged out of the city I couldn't help hoping that we might all Give Peace a Chance.

Yesterday...and the day before that, and the day before that...and...

Sorry for the silence, dear readers! Have had a nasty bout of the influenza for the last four days, compounded with sneaky little wisdom teeth popping out all over the place. This is just a short post to tell you that exciting posts are on their way, as this weekend I am off to Liverpool to do a bit of a Beatles pilgrimage... So from this little Daytripper, I will soon have a new post for you, With a Little Help From My Friends...