Across The Universe

I wrote this piece many years ago but it's worth reposting on December 8th, any year...

Across the Universe - by Marc Harry

My mum came into my room on Tuesday morning and told me to "prepare myself for a shock". I immediately thought my grandfather had died or been taken more seriously ill. In retrospect, awful though it sounds, I would have taken it better if that was what had happened.

She told me John Lennon had been shot. I replied, "how is he?" and she slowly shook her head and said "he isn't - he's dead."

What? John? The most important man in the world to my life? The Beatle? The Walrus ?? The man whose new LP I had queued around the corner to buy just a few weeks ago? Dead? My head couldn't take it in.

I sat on the floor with my radio and tuned from station to station...why were they all playing Imagine? Ah..7.30 - the news...no, I don't want to hear that, find another station...no...another - and so on as the news began to sink into my reality.

I made a shrine in my bedroom window. I hung up my electric guitar and surrounded it with LP covers. I went out and bought every English newspaper (to my utter regret a few weeks later I cut them up to make a collage for my bedroom wall - each newspaper is now worth a
fortune !). I got to school VERY late.

My friend and I offered to spend Wednesday afternoon (general studies period) in the school Music Room playing John Lennon records for other fans to show their respect. We were told to do two songs live for every record played (I was a singer/pianist/guitarist, he a
pianist). So we booked the room and advertised the event. 15 minutes before the event on Wednesday we had to move to the school hall ! I recall rows of girls in Beatles scarves wearing round John Lennon specs in floods of tears as Colin and I played Across the
Universe, If I Fell, Imagine, Isolation and others. It was my first gig. It helped me grieve yet gave me such a feeling of pride that I could share John's music in this way - and that so many others amongst my school friends felt the same grief.

Of course, I wanted to know the story of what had happened too. There are many versions and conspiracy theories but the one generally accepted as nearest to the truth goes something like this...

Mark David Chapman* was, actually, a very nice young man. A massive Beatles fan and especially of John. To some extent he had even modelled himself on his hero - as so many of us have done over the years. He was a good, clean living young man who taught in his local
Sunday School.

Then (on my birthday !), Oct 9th 1975 Sean was born after a very long struggle by John and Yoko to conceive and carry a baby full term (Yoko had had several miscarriages, of course). John was the proudest parent there could ever be. He knew he had made mistakes in
the fatherhood of Julian and promised himself he would not make the same mistake again this time around. No being away on long tours, coming home and finding his son another couple of inches taller - no missing out on first smiles, first words etc. His EMI contract
almost at an end he felt free - free from contracts, free from expectations and no burden on him to sing or record ever again unless he wanted to. So he didn't.

John stayed at home and looked after the baby while Yoko multiplied the family fortune through careful business investments. John changed the nappies (diapers), John sang Sean to sleep, John danced with him to stop him crying. John cooked the bread...John was doing
what he wanted to do - be a daddy !

And the world missed John. They called him crazy - "dreaming my life away" as he sat there watching the wheels go round. And Mark Chapman missed him too. The story goes that he started to believe he could help fill the gap. He tried to look like John until people in
restaurants asked him to sign autographs...marrying a rather plain, Japanese wife helped maintain the charade...he was even invited on stage to perform as John. And so the 'madness' began...

Chapman started booking into hotels as John Lennon. He booked airline tickets too. As he descended into a form of schizophrenia he was actually starting to believe he was John Lennon. And he was happy...and the world still missed John, the 'loony ex-Beatle locked away in the
austere Dakota buildings near Central Park.' The man who had said (according to the press) "I have made my contribution to society".

Then Sean started school and who needs a full-time househusband? While on holiday in Bermuda John started thinking about making another record. he had listened to the radio playing the New Wave music of 79/80. He knew that if the world could put Lene Lovich in
the charts then they could also listen to Yoko (at last). He sang his new ideas for songs over the phone to Yoko - she had thought the same and sang her songs back...and the world welcomed John Lennon back into the fold and bought his new album Double Fantasy. The single, Starting Over hit the charts too. And Mark Chapman, like any John Lennon fan bought the album.

And they say he liked it...but he knew it wasn't him...and if John Lennon was back in the world - where did he fit in? With his mental decline in freefall he fed its fever by reading and rereading JD Salinger's 'Catcher in the Rye'. Swinging moment by moment between being John Lennon's biggest fan and seeing his oft-time hero as some sort of grotesque impostor he bought another airline ticket to New York. He stood as so many fans had done before him in the shadow of
the Dakota and waited for a glimpse of his idol and was rewarded with a signature on his copy of Double Fantasy. In his own way, John Lennon had signed his own death warrant for, as he got
into the car which would take he and Yoko to their final recording session Chapman proudly clutched his prize...and waited.

Returning home late at night after putting the finishing touches to Yoko's 'Walking on Thin Ice' John got out of the car. His attention was drawn by Chapman's "Excuse me Mr Lennon," and as he turned his head a volley of shots littered the air. John fell, his blood-splattered glasses flew across the pavement (sidewalk), Yoko screamed. A nearby police patrol picked up the latest
crime statistic and bundled him into the back of the car and headed for the hospital. Part way there one of the two police officers looked around and thought he recognised their passenger. As he asked, "Are you John Lennon?" the barely conscious John vaguely nodded and
muttered a final "Yeah".

On arrival at the hospital, emergency crews tried for some time to revive their patient but to no avail. John had crossed his universe, watched his final wheel go round and the man who told us to give peace a chance and that all we needed was love had left this stage for the final time. "Turned out nice again."**

And the whole world mourned. Starting Over hit number one, closely followed by Imagine and Woman. Tributes poured out like New Year's Eve champagne. As so many discovered that month - you don't know what you got - until you lose it.

And I did my concert. And I still miss him. Bless you...

Marc

* There are many who will not speak his name. Rather Voldermortian? MDC applied (yet again) for parole this year (2010). It was denied once more.

** at the end of the Beatles version of Free as a Bird you hear a ukulele. As it fades you hear the words "made by John Lennon." John never said that. The words he recorded were "Turned out nice again", a catchphrase of wartime British comic George Formby. When that was
played backwards for the single.................

Unless You've Been There....

Many years ago, long before I knew what depression was I remember reading about some of my favourite comedians and the differences between their on-stage (or on-screen) personas and their real-life personalities. It seemed hard to imagine Spike Milligan or Robin Williams as chronic depressives, yet the fact is they both were...and their situation is far from a rarity in the world of entertainment. One of the most common anecdotes about depression tells of the young man who went to his doctor telling of the crippling sadness that was ruining his life. The doctor told him to go out that evening and see a world famous clown who was appearing in that town - "He would cheer anyone up," the doctor continued. The young man burst into tears crying that he WAS that clown...

I used to think depression was just an excuse for some people being miserable and, heaven knows, I've met enough miserable people in my life! There is at least a small part of everyone who has not suffered this illness that would like to see those complaining of depression given a good shake and told to 'pull themselves together'. Again, I know this for a fact because I used to be one of their number!

I have suffered immeasurably in the last 4 months from people who insisted they cared for and were 'concerned' for me - yet, instead of support and encouragement (and, even more lacking - the crucial attempt to understand how I was feeling or what might be best for me) I was cast off from some of the main things that helped my condition, kept me active, gave me a sense of fulfilment in life...or, in a more basic explanation, got me out of the house...for most of the time I would stay here in the safety of my 'castle' where I'm not expected to be anything other than ME and where the other people I meet love me unconditionally and understand me completely.

I felt great over the weekend! It was my birthday on Saturday - 48 but with a mind that feels 18 and a body that feels 68 - and I drove to North Wales with my two younger sons and my wonderful mum. If I was to drive rather than be (God forbid) a passenger I had to promise not to drive too fast and not to play loud rock music on the journey. So, we listened to a random selection from the old Portsmouth Songsters recordings (thanks to Lewis's iPhione shuffle feature) and we sang along to everything from Step Out to Take My Life.

Saturday evening I sang a selection of songs I'd written but finishing up with John Wetton's wonderful 'Battle Lines' as part of an excellent evening's music and on Sunday sang twice more in church services before the drive back home (during which the music ranged a little wider and the speedometer, I confess, twitched over mum's 'acceptable' once or twice! I felt good and fulfilled!

Yesterday, Monday, I was tired but, worse than that, I felt 'low'...one of those 'lows' that comes every few months that makes you not want to breathe, let alone get up or go out! As a single dad I have no option but to 'force it' - to do thing that rankles all depressives more than anything else...to 'pull yourself together', if you wish! Ieuan had to go to the doctor and all four of us had dentist check-ups. Today, I woke to what I hope and pray is the 'epicentre' of the 'low'. In the meantime, the good old doc had once more increased my anti-depression medication.

Yet, this afternoon, I was booked to entertain a group of people in Southsea and there was no way I could or would let them down so near to the event. Even as I forced myself to get ready, walked to the car and drove the few miles to the venue my mind was refusing to connect at all with the idea that, within half an hour, people would be sitting expectantly, waiting for me to entertain, challenge, inspire and have rolling in fits of laughter...what a bizarre concept that someone who felt the way I did could achieve all that?

As I sat at the back of the venue with a lovely, hot cup of tea, several people I have known for years walked past and asked how I was. "Fine," I replied, with a smile! Well, you do - don't you? Believe me, the last thing they would want was the truth or a lengthy explanation to the contrary! And soon, it was time...

I sang, I told a story. Then more...a bit about John Lennon and a much appreciated 'Imagine' then (how bizarre!) they really were guffawing and rolling with laughter to my poem about the Harvest Festival. A few more songs and a couple more poems later and time was almost up. I ended with the song that has become a bit if a 'theme tune' for me in the last few years - Joy Webb's incredible composition 'There Will be God' with my own rhapsodic arrangement with sweeping, complex piano accompaniment building to the massive crescendo of positivity as the eponymous last line is delivered, culminating in a 16 beat, fortissimo top G to emphasise the truth I know...but can't always feel!

As I said in my Facebook status a few minutes later as I sat in my car, "I needed that song today more than my audience did."

The clown had successfully hidden his tears once again. Despite how I had felt before, a combination of my own professionalism and determination, natural adrenaline and God's supernatural power got me through and (not wanting to sound at all big-headed or arrogant) thrilled the audience who went away so clearly happy.

Now, I sit at home a couple of hours after the show ended. There is still enough adrenaline coursing through my veins to have held off the return of the 'low' - so I'm not curled in a (big) ball ignoring the world but enjoying a cuddle and glass of Cream Soda with Ieuan while I type a blog and he watches 'Cloudy With A Chance of Meatballs' again! I remember it will be time to prepare tea soon and that reminds me it's Tuesday and that I should be somewhere tonight - but won't be - because, as I wrote at the start of this piece, those who ought to have supported me cast me off.

So...should I watch Wales lose again tonight or is that just 'asking' for the 'low' to return? See, if I can joke about it things must be on the 'up' again! Hope so anyway!

What is Music?

GCSE Listening Paper 1992:

(Musical extract played on the tape - short excerpt from Mendelssohn's 'Fingal's Cave')

Q. Make one comment about the music you hear

My pupil's actual written answer on the exam paper: "It does my head in"

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I had tried - for five years at that point - to persuade the young lady concerned that there was more music worth listening to than just Kylie and New Kids on the Block. In some cases, I learned eventually, you just have to give up!

Sometimes, it's hard even to convince the uneducated teenager that what they are being asked to listen to is describable AS music!

Take Steve Reich's famous 'Clapping Music'. No pitched notes, no instruments (save hands) - two performers clapping an identical rhythm pattern, with one of them getting progressively more and more 'out of phase' with the other until, eventually, enough patterns have been repeated to once again bring the two together in unison. A simple idea...but music? Or is it more like a (rhythm) game?

Skip 18 years into the future and I have just had a very interesting Facebook conversation with a talented young friend. He is a professional military musician, percussionist with several notable brass bands and also works in the rock/pop field - so it's not someone unacquainted with different genres and styles of music I am talking about.

It seems Glen flicked over to tonight's Prom concert part-way through the London Première of Julian Anderson's 'Fantasias'. His comment?

"Just flicked on the Proms, what a load of rubbish! When are they ever going to play a nice melody and not just tune up!"

You might imagine - a bit like a red rag to an old bull like me! I may not have been over-impressed by Mr Anderson's latest opus myself - but I'll defend its right to exist and be described as music to the death!

So...to go back to my title...what IS music?

In the afore-mentioned teaching career I would ask that question of my Year 7 classes and write the responses on my whiteboard:

tunes

instruments

rhythm

sounds

beats

Same answers, every class - every year.

None of the responses are the answer to the question! Music might contain some or all of these but none (except one) are a prerequisite of 'music'! 'Sounds' being that response, of course.*

My next question to the class, therefore, is obvious! Does that mean that all sounds are music?

Discussions ensued! The majority would say "no" but some would say, "Yes, all sounds are music". I ask every person in the room to 'make a single, short noise'. Thirty children enjoy the chance to do so: shy girls tap the desk, Johnny and his five brash mates make fart noises or belch - they think it's original, of course!

I ask if that was music and most agree it wasn't - it was just 'random'. So, I invite Johnny to the front of the class and ask him to point at members of the class in turn and, when he does, for each to make his/her noise. More often than not Johnny returns to the same few friends, in turn, hence introducing repeated, identifiable patterns into the 'performance'. Most of the class now think that Johnny's piece WAS music...sort of!

I open the classroom door and ask everyone to listen to the sounds they can hear outside and we then make another list:

trees rustling

traffic

footsteps

fire alarm/police siren

plane

voices

birds

We agree that wasn't music either - just random noises again - so I play a CD I prepared earlier that places each of the sounds we had just heard and discussed into a defined 'soundscape'.

Same sounds as the random ones but, now, quite a lot think my piece could be described as music...so what had changed?

Here is the crux or aim of the whole lesson - the introduction (never by ME, by the way) of the word ORGANISED. If random sounds are somehow organised we turn them into music - and once that bridge is crossed most of my pupils were ready for more.

Leonard Bernstein once described music as "Sounds that change*** and move along in time." It is the placing of sounds into a context of time that turns them into music - organising them, if you like!

Glen followed up his first comment with:

"come off it - really did sound like they where just tuning up at one point! That's not Music!"

Really? Over two centuries ago Haydn used 'tuning up' as part of his Symphony Number 60 - 'Il Distratto' (The Absent-Minded Man). So did Britten in 'Young Person's Guide'. When The Beatles asked their assembled musical forces to 'make any sounds, getting gradually higher and higher' they created the famous, apocolyptic crescendo you can hear twice in 'A Day In The Life' - not far from 'tuning up', really, is it?

I'm quite sure Julian Anderson's instructions to the National Youth Orchestra this evening were quite clear in their intent - certainly I'd guess, clearer than some of the more outlandish Graphic Scores produced during the last century!

Whether 'Fantasias' is 'good' music or not remains to be debated. The answer will depend on many factors and will always be an individual one - some will love it and many more, surely, will not! Whether it goes on to become part of the popular orchestral repertoire yet to be seen!

But music it most certainly is! ****

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* There might even be some who would argue against even THIS, however. I have seen 'silent' choirs of deaf children 'singing' using signing - together, in time...'performing' a song. Music?

Further, most people who have been music students are aware of John Cage's famous 4'33" - a piece of 'music' in which a pianist sits at a piano silently for the duration of the 'piece'! The argument is always, "Well, OF COURSE, it's not (proper) music!"**

** Oy!!!...read the rest of the blog...THEN read this you impatient person! ****

*** The word 'change' is also important in this description - or else one might be able to describe a resting heartbeat as 'music'. If it is resting (i.e. virtually constant) then the sounds won't usually change, so failing Bernstein's criteria. If one goes for a short run then rests again the sound of the heart will find its tempo increased, then decreased again - in this scenario you have made a conscious decision to run, knowing this will cause the tempo change = arranged/organised the sound...and I'd, therefore, defend it as music!

**** My interpretation of 4'33" is that Cage has been an absolute genius on this occasion, manipulating the audience into becoming the performance! The pianist sits in silence listening tothe discomfort of an audience not knowing how to react to the situation. Uneasy shuffling, embarrassed coughs, hushed whispers ("has he started yet?" "what's going on?"), maybe even unwrapping of boiled sweets! And the pianist/audience, being 'in the know' hears the sounds created from the composer's stimulus - the 'organised sound' of my final definition!

I Got You Covered....

I wanted to write today...but didn't know what about...so I went for as nice, relaxing bath - putting my BlackBerry on 'shuffle tracks' and settling back.

The bath lasted five tracks...and all five were cover versions! I had members of Yes, The Doors and Styx covering Pink Floyd's 'Don't Leave Me Now', John Wetton covering Genesis's 'Your Own Special Way, Harry Nilsson singing Jimmy Webb's 'Campo De Encino', The Beatles paying their tribute to Chuck Berry and 'Memphis Tennessee' and then a surprise!

I knew the song 'Vine Street' and have done for decades - it is the opening song on Harry Nilsson's 'Nilsson Sings Newman' album (a whole album of cover versions, of course). But this was certainly not the dulcet tones of a young Nilsson's tenor...and it wasn't Randy's unmistakeable tuneful croak either!

So, I had to get out of the bath! Turned out (as many of you more astute readers will have noticed) to be Van Dyke Parks and a CD I'd only recently purchased (but long wanted) and not yet listened to - 'Song Cycle' - on which every song is a VDP original...except for that one which, like Nilsson, opens the album! After that I had to rifle through my archive to see if I actually had a Randy Newman version...and I did, albeit a demo, as part of the 4CD retrospective set 'Guilty'.

I'd already been thinking, during the bath, about the concept of 'covers'. Prior to The Beatles the accepted 'norm' was for professional songwriters to write the songs, a record producer to find them and suggest them to a group or artist and 'away you go'. We all know how George Martin wanted The Beatles to record and release 'How Do You Do It' and managed to prise an unenthusiastic and reluctant studio version from them only for John to successfully argue that 'Please Please Me' was better and even suggest the 'surefire number one' be given to another of Brian Epstein's groups, Gerry & the Pacemakers. (It followed Please Please Me to Number one in the UK charts two months later, by the way!)

The Beatles and many other 1960s artists certainly blurred the lines between songwriter and artist to such an extent that, a decade later, almost all artists and groups wrote the majority of their own material - and that became the new 'norm' and, to some extent, still is today. There were (and are still) professional songwriters - but Tin Pan Alley was never quite the same again.

Cover versions and Nilsson have always made an interesting subject for debate. Harry was, undoubtedly, a marvellous songwriter, yet his career will forever be marked by the fact that his biggest hits were cover versions - most notably Badfinger's Without You and Fred Neil's Everybody's Talkin'. Harry wrote plenty of songs that became hits for other artists including The Monkees, Three Dog Night and David Cassidy - but the irony remained!

Such is the enormity of the number of cover versions associated with the music of Harry Nilsson that my friend Tom Westendorf has managed to put three 'packages ' of songs numbering 580 songs together for a yearly series of internet radio specials called 'Harry All Day'. (Artists featured are as diverse as actors George Segal, Robin Williams and Curtis 'Booger' Armstrong, The Muppets, The Turtles, Brian Wilson and Keith Moon...and even a couple of efforts by yours truly (happy indeed to share such exalted company!)

They say Paul McCartney's Yesterday is the most covered song of all with many thousands of official record and CD releases (goodness only knows how many millions of times it has been sung in bars and clubs and concert halls around the world in the last 45 years!)

Next week Brian Wilson himself releases a whole album of Gershwin 'interpretations' - said to be so much more than mere 'covers' - like Nilsson, I expect Brian to prove he has the genius to 'make other people's songs his own!

The funny thing is, if you'd asked me (before the bath) how many 'cover versions' I had on my BlackBerry I'd have probably guessed at less than ten. For my 'shuffle' function to find five consecutively out of a total of just under 2,000 songs I'm guessing there's a fair few more than that!

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PS - I can't help but think this post makes for a fine game of '6 Degrees of Separation'. Many of the artists mentioned are barely a degree of one away but I find I can even get from Styx to Brian Wilson in one...so I doubt 6 degrees would be needed anywhere!

Imagine...all the people...

I was reminded this week of an old pastime I used to enjoy!

Back in the early 80s. when the Sony Walkman was still a pipe dream for most of us and the CD still being shown on Tomorrow's World (still playing after being smeared with raspberry jam I seem to recall) I was a young music student in Colchester, Essex doing my BA (hons) in Music composition and performance.

There was plenty of music at college of course and plenty back at my digs (as my grant became ever more swallowed up by the cash registers of Parrot Records)! The problem was getting to and from the 'Institute' - usually on my trusty bicycle. These days, of course, my sons rarely leave the house without iPod headphones and I have a 16GB microSD card in my BlackBerry that holds nearly 200 CDs...

...And thereby hangs the reason for my 'lost pastime' - the Imaginary Gig!

For I would cycle up and down the chestnut-lined 'Avenue of Remembrance' enjoying the most sublime 'one-off' music concerts in which the (already-late) John Lennon shared a stage with Brian Wilson, the whole series of live gigs by Harry Nilsson (who famously never played live concerts) - one gig per album! I put together my own 'supergroups' with eclectic mixtures of musicians like Phil Collins, Rick Wakeman, Greg Lake and Ritchie Blackmore...and, probably most often, joined Paul, George and Ringo on-stage in John's place for many, many Beatles reunions! (I even had the temerity to Imagine them adding some of my own songs to the set-list...but, I guess, that what dreams are for!)

The reminder came about because of the impending re-release of a novel called 'Glimpses' by American author Lewis Shiner. Without giving too much away a (usually) drunk sound engineer discovers he can not only 'internalise' gigs and sessions in the same way I did...but he could actually record them on tape! And, thus, the world got to hear several 'long-lost masterpieces' and the readers got to 'meet' some long-dead rock stars...a rather bizarre but very enjoyable read, especially for any who, like me, are big fans of The Beatles and Brian Wilson.

As a musician I gradually became aware that not everyone was able to share my pastime - I believe it to be linked to the same part of the psyche that enables me to play any tune I've heard without music, yet others simply cannot. One of my close friends has played with Salvation Army bands for well over 50 years; I dare not even try to imagine the number of times he has played a tune like 'Away In A Manger'? A typical carolling session (of which there are still a dozen or so each year but, in years gone by there might have easily been 30 a year) would yield at least six playings (3x2 verses). Yet Alex assures me he still could not play the tune without the music in front of him - and he is no mean musician, let me assure you!

So I was joyed somewhat when the skill of 'internalising music' became part of the National Curriculum orders for Music during my teaching career - and it was something I always tried to encourage my pupils to do - on whatever level they were able. I never discovered anyone else who could (or at least openly admitted) internalising to the extent I did until I met a friend on the Internet about 12 years ago. Jim Painton (see http://sho-sho-sho-show-offsky.blogspot.com/2009_09_01_archive.html ) could...and we spent some time exchanging emails - sending each other lists of musicians to 'imagine' playing together - so it was no surprise that Jim (who wrote the liner notes for my Christmas CD and allowed me to reciprocate for his 'Painton Place') was to the one to send me my copy of 'Glimpses' (not JUST any old copy, of course, it was a signed 1st edition).

I think I might do a bit more 'daydream gigging'...see you when I get back...

Star Wars...Revelation-style!

When I was a student (a few too many years ago now, sad to say) I picked up a couple of Crusader Comics. These were genuine comic books but written from a very 'fundamentalist Christian' point-of-view. While they were 'sensationalist' (to say the VERY least) they did contain some pointers towards good Christian teaching. They were more anti-Catholic than Ian Paisley, as anti-Freemason as a thrice-blackballed bank manager and made Dan Brown's expose of The Vatican read like Cinderella!

But one comic, entitled 'Angel of Light' told the Biblical story of Lucifer quite well! Lucifer was, of course, God's favourite angel - the leader of all the worshipping angels - who got 'bored' with grovelling at the Almighty's feet and tried to con a third of Heaven's angels into bowing to HIM for a change! The Bible tells us that God, in His wrath, cast Lucifer out of Heaven and not - as is popularly believed - into Hell but down onto the surface of planet Earth (and the atmosphere surrounding it)! I even had to look up the relevant scripture to help me believe this! Yet, there it was in King James's best black and white!

It became a popular topic for me as I regarded myself as a rather radical, young Christian student at the time! I even preached on the subject on one of 'Blood & Fire's' evangelical weekend campaigns...

It was remarked upon, by one of the stalwarts of Pontypool Corps, that it was the first time he had EVER heard the 'fall of Satan' preached from a pulpit/SA platform! Extremely sadly, I have to admit that, in 26 years of subsequent church attendance, I have also never heard the same subject preached upon! Now, "Hellfire and Damnation" are, admittedly, rather out of fashion in the modern church - some might say rightly so - though I doubt the SA's Founder, William Booth, would agree - and, just possibly, the progressive weakness of the church's influence in society, as well as its dwindling membership throughout the 20th century may reflect this!

In fact, the only other time I ever encountered the story of the 'fall of Satan' was in the movie 'Bedazzled', written by and starring the popular comedy duo Peter Cook and Dudley Moore! There, Stanley Moon (Moore) encounters Satan (aka George Spigott, played by Cook) and hears the almost exact Biblical description of Lucifer's fall 'from grace', played out around a pillar box!

Anyway, what on earth (and the atmosphere around it) has this got to do with a music blog, I hear the less patient of you ask?

The answer is: a 50p cassette (without box) that I purchased nearly thirty years ago!

Bill Davidson is a well-known name amongst older Salvationists: he was a founder-member of 'The Joystrings', not only the first Salvation Army 'pop' group but, according to many experts (including the late, great Larry Norman) the first Christian pop-group from any denomination! Certainly the first to have a hit record in the UK charts ('It's an Open Secret' reached number 32 in 1964).

After 'The Joystrings' Bill led another group called 'Good News' and later moved to the USA where he is currently the Senior Pastor at the 'Church of the King', Queensbury, New York. Bill was loved (in the SA, anyway) for his wonderful voice, heard on so many 'Joystrings' favourites - especially on one of Joy Webb's most popular and enduring songs 'There Will Be God' - and, later, his beautiful rendition of Gowans & Larsson's 'Love Never Fails' on the LP recording of their musical 'Spirit'.

In the States Bill also recorded some solo albums - and one of these was the afore-mentioned 50p, boxless bargain I purchased all those years ago!

The title of the album is 'Star Wars of Darkness and Light'. The title track begins with a synthesizer introduction - very nearly, but not quite exactly, a note-for note quotation from what is. surely, John Williams' most famous theme! The song tells the story:

"Long ago and far away

Long before the dawning of our day

In a world that we can only dream of

Though it's described so we can clearly read of it..."

(Can't you see those yellow titles scrolling on a black background?)

...Lucifer turned from his maker's eyes,

Coveting the throne for his own prize.

Star Wars of darkness and light,

Hear words that begin the fight:

"Expel Lucifer from my sight!""

What a bold move for a brave pastor/singer to take the most well-known movie of all time and use it as his own evangelical tool to tell the story, a story (as we have seen) almost taboo in the pulpit!

Of course, in even more modern times - the age of the internet - we can Google 'Star Wars and the Bible' and find over three and a quarter million hits - leading us to numerous scholarly theses exploring the details of the two right down to their absolute pathological minutiae!!!

The same can be said for E.T. (a friend from 'afar' who is misunderstood to the point of being an outcast, heals the sick ("Ouch!") then dies and rises from the dead) and even Harry Potter...gosh, this internet is a wonderful thing!

My own personal circumstances led me to dig out, re-play (and even convert to iTunes compatible mp3) Bill's 1978 album this week (originally because of a different track on the album, I have to admit) but it was good to hear it again after so long - and my Star Wars-loving kids enjoyed it too!

When we, as Christian musicians, offer our music to the Lord we can never know the good He will make of it - even many, many years later! We should not be surprised! Isaiah tells us exactly how God will use our efforts:

" it shall not return to me empty,

but it shall accomplish that which I purpose,
and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it."

Christian musicians: "Keep singing and playing for Him!" Amen!

Have Mouthpiece...Will Blow!

I know some brass players who treat their mouthpiece the way some golfers treat their putters - i.e. they change them more often than they do their socks! I remember one cornetist with a mantelpiece full from one end to the other with Denis Wicks, Vincent Bachs, Adams, Blessings, Bessons, Kellys...standing like little ornaments on a shelf! Indeed, that's exactly what they WERE...waiting their turn patiently until my friend split a few too many notes and gave each another chance!

My eldest son, Morgan is a collector of mouthpieces. We found, just the other day an antique French mouthpiece with a triangular aperture! I have never seen anything like that before in my 40+ years as a player! Suffice to say there are mouthpieces to help you get high notes, ones to help you get low ones, some aim to improve your tone, plastic ones that are not too cold when playing Christmas Carols, heavy ones with boosters to help you

play longer by dispersing the vibrations to your lips...

Who would think such a small thing could come in such variations or make such a difference? But then...the amateur golfer probably asks the same about putters! I think it was Sam Torrance I once heard admit he had over 400 of them in his garage!

When I first moved onto euphonium it came about almost by accident: While playing with Camborne SA band I had formed part of a 'stage band' in the musical 'Hosea'. I had played cornet myself back then (aged 10) but our wise bandmaster, Ken Norton (left with Morgan and who, very sadly, passed away just a few months ago) realised such a small instrument was not for me. he moved me onto tenor horn and, within weeks, even I could recognise an improvement. When, a short while later, my parents were appointed across the Tamar to Torquay, the bandleader already had, ready for me, a shiny cornet. Oh-oh!

"But I play horn now," the 12-year old me piped up! He didn't have a horn - but he DID have a blackened 1912 euphonium with a bent 4th valve! If ever an instrument responded to some TLC it was that one...I worked and polished until it shone - the bath still had the marks when we left Torquay two years later - and I played and played and played. Six months later I am told I was playing some of the hardest solos in the euphonium repertoire using the SA manufactured Rangefinder mouthpiece my dad bought for me!

At our next home (Tunstall, Stoke-On-Trent) I played an Imperial euphonium (still with the Rangefinder) - although I looked with not a little envy towards our principal euphonium player's Bright Silver Plate Sovereign! At Bedlington (our next port of call) I played one of those strange design Yamaha euphoniums with the 4th valve 'up top' alongside the other three). This was a slightly larger bore and, therefore, necessitated a change in mouthpiece. Billy Webb, a friend from Newcastle, gave me a Denis Wick 6BM which I played until I left home for college.

At Colchester Institute I studied with one of the best musicians it has ever been my privilege to meet, Michael Clack - for many years the conductor of the world famous Chalk Farm Salvation Army Band. Michael was vice-principal of the college (and was an old friend of my parents) - which may account for the fact he managed to purloin one of the college Sovereigns for me to play (I finally got to play one...5 years after lusting after Kevin's back in Tunstall!)

The 6BM didn't fit the wider bore of the Sovereign, of course, and Michael kindly lent me a Vincent Bach 3G mouthpiece in my first college lesson, September 1981. I used it until Christmas then, using my Christmas money, I bought my own shiny new one from my fellow SA bandsman Dennis Todd's 'Rosehill Instruments' shop in Bedlington High Street. I think, even back in 1981/2 it cost me £30!

When I got back to college something was not quite right...the new mouthpiece didn't 'feel' the same. Michael and I did an A/B comparison and they weren't the same! I have spoken to Bach 'experts' who 'absolutely assure' me that I am wrong - but that 3G has a different internal contour and cup-size! My surprise (and slight disappointment) was somewhat tempered by Michael Clack informing me I'd been silly to buy a new mouthpiece anyway - he was more than happy to let me have his...for a fiver!

Fortunately, Dennis Todd allowed me a refund...I had the 3G I liked AND a £25 bonus into the

bargain (which, undoubtedly, was soon diverted to Parrot Records in Colchester!)

29 years later, I still use that very same mouthpiece! It has been re-plated once and the number of hours of usage it has been employed in practising and performance must be into tens of thousands of hours...best value for a fiver I will ever have in my life!

At this precise moment, due to some (and I choose my description very carefully) particularly

graceless and clumsy man-management I am without a band to play with for the first time in nearly 40 years. As my new Prestige euphonium belongs to the band who have discarded me I will also soon be without an instrument as well. Today, I enjoyed a good long blow, up and down my scales and exercises and through some favourite tunes and solos. I don't know how long it will be before I can do this again and made the most of it!

But when I DO re-begin to play...my Vincent Bach 3G (pictured left complete with my own reflection) will be

waiting - and, boy, I hope that day comes soon!

Are you listening...or just hearing?

It was one of my favourite questions to GCSE students at the start of their 2 year course! Not worded quite like that, to be honest...I preferred to inject a little bit of fun: "How many of you listen to music while you do your homework?" was more like what I would have asked. Every time, every year, every hand went up. I would shake my head with a wry grin and accuse them all of being liars!

What a great way to provoke a wave of indignation! "But I DO!!!" would come back at me from all corners...and so I would go on to prove my point! Shaking my head, somewhat, I would ask them to 'listen' to a piece of music I had carefully pre-prepared! As soon as they heard the harpsichord arepeggio that led into an operatic recitative I watched the lights go out around the classroom...pupil by pupil the eyes glazed over. Which was something of a shame, really, for the words I sang on the recording included the lines, "Come, touch me on the shoulder and this fiver shall be yours!"

As the music played I took a note from my wallet and placed it, for all to see, in front of me on the desk. I waited for the music to stop, looked around the room in a questioning way for a few moments, then placed it back into my wallet. I never parted with the note in 15 years!

Of course, I would always be asked what I'd been doing with the money and I replie

d each time by writing four questions on the board:

1) Which instrument provides the accompaniment for this song?

2) From which type of work might this excerpt be taken:

a) a symphony

b) an opera

c) a pop song

3) What might have happened had I listened to the words properly first time through?

4) Write a sentence or two about the difference between listening to music and just hearing it.

Of course, second time through, the music was 'listened to' properly, one or two jokers might even try to touch me on the shoulder...but the fiver was staying in my pocket! We would go on to discuss the differences between 'hearing' music (as they now all admitted they did while doing homework) and really listening to it! An important lesson was learned very early on as part of a GCSE course that relies heavily on the ability to listen to music 'properly'

But I have discovered over the years that some people really CAN'T listen to music in the way I do (or the way I might want them to). Listening to music and enjoying it has a pre-requisite requirement* that you 'understand' what you are listening to, at least to some ext

ent. Let me explain:

If I were to play some little known excerpt of 'classical' music** to a brand new class of Year 7 pupils (11 years old) - for example, Bartok's Violin Concerto (see link below) - with the instruction from me to simply 'enjoy it', I may as well give a toothless man a 16 ounce steak with no knife and fork with the same directive! He would choke and they would, at least, feel sick!

On the contrary, if I asked the pupils to listen for the 8 note introduction by the harp, then hear how it is joined by the plucked (pizzicato) bassline played by cellos and basses - with a single French Horn note above - then, at least they will have some chance of 'digesting' at least a part of the musical 'steak'.

(The Bartok - here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GcJx4KkAzW0 )

Of course, it's this very fact that makes The Beatles easier to 'listen' to than Bartok; why (Glenn) Miller sold more discs than Miles (Davis) and why Cheryl (Cole) gets more downloads than...I dunno...Sade!

It's instant palatability - the same reason more people eat bubble-gum than broccoli or drink Ribena rather than rootbeer! And***, if we never venture beyond the instantly appeasing we may go our whole lives without experiencing Elgar, reading beyond Seuss to, say, Salinger...or even doing something as basic as enjoying olives and anchovies on a pizza!

I'll happily admit that when my friend Alvin first played me the music of Yes I 'didn't get it'! When I first played the music of Eric Ball it went over my head! Just like my first month of doing the Telegraph crossword saw one or two clues a day filled in! Fortunately, most of us can continue to LEARN all the way through our lives...and thank God for that!

So...next time you do your homework or have the radio on while you do your housework why not sit down quietly for five minutes and REALLY LISTEN. There's a whole new world out there!

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*at this point I have a vision of my old English teacher, Trish Gilbert, admonishing me for a) starting a sentence with an adjective and b) breaking another rule whose name escapes me 31 years later about using two words with the same meaning...like saying, "Personally, I...". Sorry Mrs G!

** definitely a blog subject for another day: "What is Classical Music?"

***Oh-oh...he's at it again Trish!

Heavenly Minded

When I first went to Music College I stayed with a dear, elderly lady called Mrs Hurnard. She was a widow and her husband had been a leading Quaker. She was already into her eighties but was as sprightly as most half her age. It was porridge or cornflakes for breakfast followed by an extensive Bible and prayers session...I had to be up at 7 in order to get to college by lunchtime! Seriously, one morning she read the entire book of Jonah before I could leave the house. After a month I had memorised the back of the cornflakes packet!

She ate (and expected me to) apples fresh from the trees in her garden, complete with bruises and copious amounts of maggots and expected a lengthy explanation of the sermon when I got home from the Salvation Army on a Sunday. I stayed at her house exactly one half term (and that was only because I'd paid rent up front!!)

Mrs Hurnard was one of those people my dad would have described as "too Heavenly minded to be of any Earthly use!" Bless her!

Well, this evening we've had a death in the family...and hence our thoughts turned Heavenward. Lewis, my middle son, and I had just enjoyed a couple of hours of great music by Randy Newman, ending with his concert for BBC4 last year, Ieuan (my youngest) had been inspired to go to bed watching Toy Story and we turned our attentions to one of our favourite albums "A Trick of the Tail" by Genesis. We put the disc in the machine, selected DTS (which we prefer to Dolby Digital), balanced the surround speaker levels and had just watched the video to "Robbery Assault and Battery". "Ripples" came next and as Phil Collins soared up to the opening notes of the final chorus Lewis saw a streak of white light emanate from our trusty DENON AVR-1601. The room was filled with silence for a moment then filled with hot, electronic smoke as Denon's spirit ascended to Silicon Heaven! Well, it was a good way to go.

As is our wont these days, Lewis and I immediately turned to Facebook where I announced the bereavement to some wonderfully sympathetic friends. Lewis did the same, announcing that we'd been watching Genesis at the time!

Now, if Mrs Hurnard were still alive and on Facebook, I could have expected this reply from her - but thank you Sandy for inspiring this blog entry and giving me the best belly-laugh I've had in days.

For Sandy replied to Lewis with, "At least you were watching something biblical."

...And lines like that one, intentional or not, make dealing with a death in the family so much more manageable!

:)

...And Now You Find Yourself in 2010...

ASIA - Omega (2010

It was a very pleasant surprise to find this album delivered 3 days early when the postman brought it this morning! I first fell in love with rock music back in 1982 when I played Asia's debut album over and over in my student room! I was at Wembley that October where the band were distant heroes...tiny figures making a massive soundscape of noise. Asia, with other bands like Yes, Genesis and It Bites have been the soundtrack to my life ever since.

I knew the opening track from Icon II (Rubicon) and hadn't expected Steve's guitar to dominate this version...yet it did. In fact I was barely aware of keyboards at first. Holy War really catches the attention - a great prog track and again a very 'big' sound but each instrumental part is well-defined (at least throguh a good system) and, in this song (like the 2nd as well) the backing vocals are towering! John, in likening this new album to Alpha hints for us to find links...and Ever Yours is, clearly, The Smile has Left Your Eyes' counterpart. It was always my opinion that Geoff was a little out of place in Yes...but his perfect musical match is Mr Wetton...and thank God they found each other! What a team!

An earlier reviewer stated that John's voice was as strong as ever here and I have to agree...my teenage son (a fellow prog-head!) remarked that he looks younger with every album. When I stood with John at an It Bites gig last year I said the same to him and it is clear he is enjoying the new lease of life that sobriety and heart surgery has given him...long may it continue! (I find myself hearing his 'testimony' at the start of Icon I: "Stone cold sober - so glad it's over" as I write this...and reflecting on our conversation that day - the day heavy-drinking chef Keith Floyd died - that 'there but for the grace of God' he could have gone himself))

There is a great posititvity in the lyrics and feel of End of the World and the listener is reminded, yet again, of the high standards of musicianship these four men share. As is usual, I find, minor keys dominate this new recording...something that has been a common thread throughout Wetton's entire oeuvre. Light the Way is one of just two Steve Howe compositions here and his guitar leads into another bright song...Howe employing his 'Yes-sounds' more here (compare this to the Asia/Alpha albums back when these sounds were about all he had...I'm delighted he has found some good 'power-guitar' sounds in more recent years...he even makes a pretty good crack at Owner of a Lonely Heart these days :) )

Emily is more of a pop song - but that doesn't mean it is not very welcome at this point in quite a deep sequence of songs! Welcome, Emily, to that seemingly endless list of girls' names to become the theme of a Wettonsong! (Emma, Jane, Josephine, Shannon, Carol-Ann/Kari-Anne, Christina, Suzanne...have I missed any??) I like this song!

And I like the next too...the 6/8 rhythm making a change in I'm Still The same. Was it to make producer Mike Paxman (Status Quo) feel at home? ;) Some great chord sequences and harmonies in here...making me think of ELO at their best. Definitely one of the highlights!

There is a Renaissance - almost operatic? - sound to the next song There Was a Time. Songs like this one seem to suggest a blurring of the lines between Asia and Icon (maybe I can't help thinking along those lines with 'Trigger' kicking off this set?) but I kind of feel easier linking this song with the likes of The Hanging Tree and even Shannon than 'Asia'. However it does feature some beautiful piano playing from Geoff and Steve picks meanderingly in a style reminiscent of what he did on Queen's Innuendo. By the end the 'Asia' feel is more pronounced, however.

I Believe is the song most obviously in the style of Alpha, 27 years ago. It is the one of the tracks that would say 'Asia' to a casual listener acquainted, these days, with little but memories of the early hits...nice to revisit the past and, with tongue just, surely, a little in cheek, say "yeah...we can still do it!"

The final track...already! This must be the one John referred to as Beatle-y, the opening chords a heavier Day in the Life...chord patterns to remind us of Here, There & Everywhere, Beatle-y harmonies...ha-ha, there is even a rhythmic nod to I Am the Walrus (and, to save later additions, Penny Lane trumpet and overtones of Hey Jude). Yet - this is definite Asia product and a very nice way to end an excellent listen. This may turn out to be a 5 star album...I just don't want to say so now on first listen - nearly every album I've ever listened to has grown on me - and if this one does then those stars will be deserved indeed!

He's a Pretty Nifty Guy...

"..Always looks you in the eye.

Everybody passing by will sigh...

...For Harry!"

Those were the opening lines of a little song composed in tribute to Harry Nilsson by his very good friend, and Monty Python star, Eric Idle. Having recorded it, with singer Charlie Dore, Eric sent it to Harry...only to have it used as the opening track...on Harry's next (and final) LP!

That album, 'Flash Harry' was released in 1980 - the same year, of course, as the last album from another of Harry's great friends, John Lennon...yet Harry was to outlive his Beatle-buddy by 14 years.

Despite that it was sixteen years ago today that Harry Nilsson passed away - his death virtually coinciding with the Northridge earthquake in LA (and I tried very hard not to mention Marianne Faithfull at this point...). That voice - that lent its youthful tenor to "Everybody's Talkin'", reached its mature peak in the Schmilsson era with "Without You", "Remember" and the wonderful, Gordon Jenkins arranged, "A Little Touch..." album of standards and then suffered the ravages of sharing Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' and never fully recovered - was silenced by a massive heart attack just as he finished work on a comeback recording...still (to the shame of his estate) unreleased and, largely, unheard.

Harry had recorded in the intervening years, of course...a Beatlefest single to raise funds for the 'Campaign to End Handgun Violence' in honour of John, a whole (unreleased) album of covers of songs by Yoko, three of which appeared on her "Every man Has a Woman..." album, various film themes and songs (including a new recording for 'The Fisher King"), contributions to various Disney compilations...quite a lot, in fact...but never a new, complete album.

Harry was never a 'fashionable' pop star...he'd have thought the very idea preposterous! Even the millions who, still today, hum along (out of tune?*) to his best known 'hits' don't, in the main, know who they are humming with! But those who DO know...and there are more than a few...are the most knowledgeable, loving fans on this earth! It was lonely, growing up a Nilsson fan in England and it was not until I discovered the internet that I was finally able to find all the others who felt like me! An internet group known, informally, as Nilssonweb centred on Roger Smith's wonderful Nilsson web pages (originally on jadebox.com but now at http://www.harrynilsson.com/ ) gradually grew to be the ultimate Harry resource. An email mailing list brought together fans who over the past 15 years have become friends and where all the stories you ever wanted to hear about Nilsson and his music spread and grew like a wildfire...until all the stories were told and the emails dwindled to a meagre trickle. But, by then, we had met anyway at 'Harryfests' - gatherings of fans at Harry Nilsson conventions in LA, Ohio, Florida and London (but none since 2002...come on, somebody!)

At Harryfest 2001 (which I helped organise at London's prestigious Hotel Russell) I finally met Roger, Harry's son Zak, his discographer Andrea T Sheridan and, of course, the leading Nilsson scholar of our age, Curtis Armstrong (yes, he of 'Booger' and 'Moonlighting' fame), without whom so many of the wonderful re-releases and remasters of the last 2 decades would never have happened. When I went to LA later I was welcomed into Zak's home (where I even played Harry's own piano - see left!), Curtis took me for a ride in his car just to play me a new track he'd found in the vaults. Ted Parkinson came to my home, I spent a holiday in Yorkshire with Pam Murphy...and many others I met on Nilssonweb have become (or became...RIP Dzhimmm Painton) close friends although we've moved onto other forums these days (like Facebook).

Others, like Rinus from Holland, I've now lost touch with...but I guess we'll all be spinning some Nilsson today and raising a glass or two in memory of the greatest voice of all.

Thank you, Harry!

My own Nilsson pages (including the fullest reviews of the albums etc you'll find) are found at www.marcharry.com/nilssonmenu.htm

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* just a reference to a Harry song (an in-joke for a few readers!) 'They always hum along, out of tune" from 'I'll Take a Tango'