BEATS OF LOVE 

129. Never Understood: The Jesus and Mary Chain by William & Jim Reid 

BEING IN bunker mode mentality because of more weird dark art shit has led to a lot of books being read.

John Berger and Will Hodginkison deserve honorary mentions. The former for reminding me that Marxism is still alive in spirit and the latter for making me laugh out loud five times. This book, however, is the cream of the crop for being the most brutally honest autobiography I've ever read. 

Psychocandy was the ultimate antidote to the artifice of eighties pop, which grew the prettiest flowers on a monolithic slab of fuzzed up feedback and its creators, the first pop stars to speak directly to my teenage self. I'm still indebted to them for being so real then and now. The goths I knew were all middle-managers or bank clerks and hated the gritty realism of the Mary Chain. Unsurprising coz goths were all about that same artifice, I guess.  

They glaze over this period of relative solidarity with a warmth that fades out with each subsequent chapter until they can no longer be on the same continent together. That said, a shared self depreciating humour accompanied by a hindsight that comes with age means the book remains colourfully gripping throughout and never once loses sight of the disorientating music. Music, as understood from the perspectives of at least half a dozen different versions of each brother.

That Dave Booth regularly span Never Understand at the Hangout was a testament to their musical influence. It was like a shot of something authentic that had more in common with Funhouse tracks than the sugary Inspiral Carpets tracks being played. It's tragic to learn that a band who, to my mind, at least existed within the confines of their own in-built mythology, was jealous of the happening scenes that sprung up around them. Tragic, but heartening to learn that they're human after all. 

Ultimately, despite the authors' best efforts to convince you otherwise, that's their lasting legacy. They transcended the age in which they first came into fashion to become something truly timeless. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

128 Step to the Rear by Brand Nubian

I'M OFF social media sites and it feels great. Facebook was accidental. Twitter; well you'd be mad to stay on there, right? Now I really am just talking to myself without all that toxic noise deafening me.

I recall the Monday in Musicworld, my town's only record store, when, for the one and only time, the record playing on the turntable blew me away. I was used to approaching shop counters in Mancunia, but not there. But sheepishly approach, I did. 

Again, I have to admit it was my kid sister playing De La Soul that first got me into hip-hop. I think I nabbed it before realizing that the US press was far superior. I love lyrics, sages, and wordplay, so this was tailor made for me. Their LP sounded so perfect on that Monday. And it sounded even better when I cranked it up later on the home hi-fi.

With all the toxic noise that deafened us out of nowhere, I revisited this gem to make some noise of my own. It sounds perfect and still blows me clean away. Puba just flowing vibrant rhymes effortlessly and elastically on top of some of the dopest, laid back funky hooks committed to vinyl. I doubt you can eclipse the breezy lines 'But I'm long, I'm like Stretch Armstrong, I go on and on and on and on'. The Mar-Keys’ Plantation Inn was the springboard for them and their extended crew, the SD50s, to get deeply creative. Giving Puba the ideal platform to be brilliant whilst still disarming me with his swaggering elegance.  

Keeping me strong for the missus and in control of my fear during these dark days. And I can now play it louder than ever. At least, until the neighbour arrives home from work.

BEATS OF LOVE 

127. Drifting in the Moonlight by Richenel

BLAIR'S TIMING couldn't have been worse. UK's second generation Muslim population was integrating at pace when he waged his illegal war. Both the police and media then scapegoated them whilst shielding the footy firms who caused carnage in their neighbourhoods. Inciting riots and galvanizing far-right hate groups.

The footy firm was alluring in the mid 80s for a school dropout like myself. The gang; shouting obscenities at the police in decent clobber, smelt like freedom. Luckily, after a couple of outings, one of the main heads of the FYC found his way into the family home and went on a minor wrecking spree. After picking up a broken seven inch single, I instantly fell out of love with his plotted acts of violence. Finding record shopping was a better way to spend my Saturdays. 

He goaded my pal's young brother into throwing a petrol bomb a few years later that epitomised his cowardice. Scarpering whilst my pal's young brother faced serious charges. Sadly, my pal, like many, has got more obsessed with the frightening concepts surrounding Islam and immigration than football of late. Concepts put into his head by fake online memes and coercive, radicalizing posts, but legitimized by the divisive and cowardly rhetoric of a few politicians and journalists who don't let the truth they obscure impede their inflammatory arguments. Goading arguments that have given way to a scarpering silence in the past few days. 

They mis-recognize secularization as forward thinking and modern, whilst wrongly assuming our immigrant population is backward. What's backward is evolving into nothing more than somebody who over-empathizes with problem teenagers. Responding emotively and aggressively to fucking everything. Amplified by these fully formed looking turbo-aggressive adults on our telly screens who haven't left puberty. Their kids are presumably there to get them back home. That's backward. 

It's as pathetic as it is cowardly to encourage in any way a protest borne of beak and strong lager that will inevitably turn violent, which targets entirely innocent people. A riot then, in everything but name. 

BEATS OF LOVE

 

126. Yuri-G by PJ Harvey

WHAT A brilliant afternoon. After washing my floors whilst watching American Psycho, I had to decide whether to listen to the golf on the radio or watch the telly highlights and go for a walk. 

I had intended to walk to the monument prior to a trip to Gosfield to celebrate my lovely aunt's 90th year but got way-laid watching the mammoth ladies semi-finals at Wimbledon, so did it today. When I finally got to the place where both my mother's and her brother's ashes scattered after busy winding roads choc-full of cars kept slowing things up, two soft circling ravens met me. 

lovely aunty with her lovely grandchildren

Ravens have become deeply poignant and something I have had to change my attitude toward. They first lingered on my lawn the day my mother took ill then seemed to gloat after she'd died. However, by the time I celebrated my 50th in a Zurich restaurant replete with glass panelled ravens, I finally embraced the bird, which became emblematic of my mother.  

My lovely aunty Pat is a great example of courage and fortitude. Partially sighted and dependent on semi-strangers entering her home, she is full of trust and joy. Reaching that age to teach us still. An atheist, she misses her long chats with my mother, whereas I still put words in mother's mouth every time I see a raven and peck her head. Almost daily. 

Hoping her bearing witness to what has felt like a deep betrayal can have some sway in future outcomes. That is simply selfish, and I will just have to find the faith to forgive. Today was all about letting go. Praying instead that she rests in perfect peace. 

That a lone raven gently flew past as I headed for home made my deeply spiritual walk complete. 

BEATS OF LOVE 

125. Persephone's Song by Students of The George School

Jonny Trunk's genius for unearthing music and releasing it on vinyl knows no bounds, and reading his Friday mail-outs is an integral part of my week. I miss wrapping my tenner in an envelope and receiving advanced copies and still say to myself 'you've surpassed yourself this time' at least once every five years.

I vividly recall the hunt for his breakthrough Wicker Man soundtrack LP. E-Bloc and Decoy couldn't help and the HMV store and Piccadilly had sold out of their stock, so I scoured second hand outlets. Luckily, after a few weeks, M1 had a copy on their counter, but Brian didn't want to sell it. I must've looked pretty desperate. He finally accepted my steep offer of £17.

With super artwork and an info sheet name checking the Massiv chorus, Journey of Peresphone was less stressful to buy and is stunning. Magically unearthing this rare 1973 album from a Pennsylvanian school ensemble like no other, Jonny once again delivers the goods. Unlike the Wonder Years, which taps into a faux nostalgia, this feels more authentic as it's a lived experience. Except darker. 

Echoes of this era's telly acoustic hand clapping children singalongs are more embedded in the imaginations of folk, like myself, born in the sixties. Before more visual, ad orientated chewing gum telly became the norm. And Miraculously, the students play all Lars T Clutterman's music and sing all Robert S Mandel's slightly strange songs incredibly well. Live.

   

This opener's jaunty piano led blast of folk funk takes me to my happy place but the whole album is a pleasure to listen to. You've proper surpassed yourself this time. 

BEATS OF LOVE

124. Two Wrongs by Samana 

Thankfully, the poems have stopped. I worried the rest of my life would think out fifth rate rhyming couplets. Back to the music. An intense, but wonderful, purchase is Samana's self-titled third album. 

Some breathtakingly fragile tunes that carry great weight are at play. Opener Into The Blue sets the tone wonderfully, but this track is the stunner and I'm so glad to have it on wax. Franklin builds the sonics to a truly blistering crescendo abetted by lush soaring strings that stirs up some proper marvel. Rebecca's highly distinctive voice is its own instrument and her lyrics are both intense and profound.

We all struggle to contain and control dual conflicting forces in our lives. Sitting on a wooden pew letting intangible thoughts of God's creativity pour into me, hoping to make the struggle easier by feeling some presence, is my freedom quest. Rebecca's flickering imagery harks back to the freight trains of freedom that so influenced writers in 50s America and beyond.

Sounding proper fresh, coz we're still hopelessly addicted to exploring our inner-selves in less cerebral ways than classicism would prefer us to. Freight-train riding represents the big ideas we have about America. Its expansive, diverse and sensory imagery sparks our imagination and feeds our own freedom quest. These sensory lyrics reflect the transient nature of freight train images, encasing what, for many, encompasses the attraction of the true freedom quest; the great unknown. 

I'm off to bask in its majesty, at least until the footy starts.   

                   

BEATS OF LOVE 

123. In a Heap by Me

'He's deep,' said someone

as I lay in a heap,

The rhythms of the night before 

lay with me on the floor,

'How could they possibly know how great the new 2 Lone Swordsmen LP is?'

I asked myself in emotive wonder

As they calculated that the glass-eyed shallow end of life is best,

The drizzle, not this thunder 

Drizzle that characterized my old man's days on earth

Sure, he'd seen the Stones at Belle Vue

but that was nothing new

I never thought Mick and Keith would outlive him or Lord Sabre

or never thought I'd be voting for this tepid form of Labour

Who I vote for to annoy my old man, still 

Whose upper body conceals itself behind an out-folded Daily Express

I see those flapping slippered feet untangling the mess

That life became

within a paper so lame

'He's in a heap,' said they

and they were dead right