...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

*************************************************************************************

* 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'

Blowing My Cover!

Thirty years or so ago...when I first 'properly discovered' The Beatles I recall being rather amazed to hear (or read, I forget which) that 'Yesterday' was the most covered song in history with, at that time, over 1,500 versions recorded.

With an exponential increase in the number of recordings the last three decades have spawned I'd probably be correct in guessing that number would now be well into the tens of thousands...maybe that figure could be accounted for just in the sleazy...yes...yucky...world of muzak - 'Music For Relaxation', 'Panpipe Moods', 'Theo Papadopoulos's Zither Zeniths'...you get the idea, I'm sure (actually, I own the accursed 'Panpipe Moods'...have done for 15 years...still in shrink wrap - and 'NO' I didn't pay for it!)

The age of CD and mp3 downloads has heralded this sharp increase in available 'music'...and, for me, nothing sums up the disposabilty of the majority of new pop music than the necessity of more and more cover versions released week after week!

To be fair, it's not just the music world that reaches back to halcyon days of yore...have you noticed the number of remade movies in the last few years? Why did they need to remake 'Alfie' or 'The Italian Job', for instance? It's not as if Michael Caine has even gone out of fashion, is it? Staggeringly, they even remade 'The Taking of Pelham 123' this year! Why? I've seen both and there's only one of them I'd want to watch again! Disney are even going to remake 'Yellow Submarine', I see...which brings me back, yet again, to the Fabs!

The very first LP of Beatles cover versions I bought I probably owned before I had even completed my collection of originals: the album 'Northern Songs' by Revolver was a collection of songs the Beatles 'gave away', performed (roughly) in the style the group may have used themselves had they recorded them. Filled with titles like 'Bad To Me', 'One and One is Two, 'Hello Little Girl' and 'From a Window' I remember listening over and over...imagining that there might, somewhere, be 'real' versions yet to be discovered...without ever seriously believing there were! I was wrong, of course - and from the mid-1990s, as I began to explore this new wonder called the Internet, I even found a few very lo-fi real audio files of a few of these tracks. 15 years later we OWN legitimate copies of most of them thanks to the Anthology series! A few remain elusive and will probably remain so (most notably Paul's demo of 'World Without Love') but every so often I still get a little surprise...good things come to those who wait...and surf!

A friend recently sent me a CD containing two BBC Radio specials, the latest incarnation of 'Beatles at the Beeb', this time introduced by Bill Kenwright and the second, a programme about Beatles cover versions hosted by former Cavern Club cloakroom attendant Cilla Black.

The former was another good trawl through the archives - not as exciting these days as when the original (Andy Peebles?) show was transmitted, opening our ears to recordings us mere fans never knew existed! We now have the 2-CD BBC set in our collections...have had for several years now...but I still cherish those Chrome Dioxide C-120s that repeated playing of once confirmed to me that The Beatles really did play songs like 'Oh Carol', 'Johnny Be Goode' and 'Cryin', Waitin', Hopin''

Yet the latter show has given me quite a bit more 'happy car moments' over the last few weeks - Sandie Shaw, Ella Fitzgerald, Dollar...my fellow Beatlemaniac 2nd son, Lewis, commented (very astutely, I thought) that there probably was no other group whose catalogue could be played in so many different styles and sound as if they were written for that genre...and I have to agree!

So...which Beatles covers stand out in my mind? Like most people I would have to include both the best and the worst in order to answer that one! Anyone remember the 'Sergeant Pepper' movie starring 'The Bee Gees'? It's VERY hard to find these days and it sums up all camps...the good, the not so good and the downright awful! The version of 'Got To Get You Into My Life' by 'Earth, Wind & Fire' (with the Phoenix Horns very much to the fore) is a much underplayed masterpiece...one of VERY few covers I might even prefer to the original! The same might not be said for Frankie Howerd's take on 'Mean Mr Mustard'!

I was very impressed, generally, by the musical versions found in the movie 'Across The Universe'. 'I Want You (She's So Heavy)', Bono's 'I Am Tne Walrus' and the title track are particularly effective, I think. The same cannot be said for George Martin's retirement offering, 'In My Life', made up of various celebrities 'doing' Beatles songs, which I find ponderous and somewhat pretentious. Most people love Joe Cocker's classic version of 'With a Little Help From My Friends' and it certainly lifts what could have been a throwaway 'Ringo' number were it not on 'Pepper' - did you know the original first lines were 'What would you do if I sang out of tune? Would you throw tomatoes at me?' Apparently Ringo refused to record that as he was unsure the days of concerts were over!

Beatles covers have been recorded successfully all around the world - and in most languages. The group themselves recorded 'Sie Liebt Dich' and 'Komm Gib Mir Deine Hand' for their own German fans - Del Shannon had a US hit with 'From Me To You' 6 months BEFORE the band themselves had a US hit! It seems that, whatever the group, if they've done any covers, they've probably done Beatles ones - even prog giants like 'Yes' featured 'Every Little Thing' on their first album, Deep Purple did 'Help' on theirs...Rick Wakeman did a whole tribute album...as have many others.

I hated the 'Dollar' hit version of 'She Loves You' when it came out and remember decrying it as some sort of sacrilege...I was pleasantly surprised that when I heard it on the Cilla show that not only did I quite enjoy it...I was actually somewhat impressed by the effective contrast that was Thereza's middle 8! Time can be forgiving, obviously!

Jazz has been good to Beatles music - I mentioned Ella earlier but many other singers, big bands and even modern jazz ensembles have taken Lennon/McCartney into new realms...I might not like all I've heard but that is not necessarily an indication of value, of course. Sinatra, of course, was another who covered several Beatles songs, once proudly announcing in concert that 'Something' was his "favourite Lennon-McCartney number"...OOPS!! (I hardly need to explain to educated folks like yourselves that George wrote that one!)

One of the strangest CDs of Beatles music I own is 'The Beatles Collection' by British vocal group 'The King's Singers'. I love this group anyway (they have recently released two sublime CDs of Salvation Army classics which are amongst the most played of all my vast collection).
'The King's Singers' are many groups in one: they can be hilariously funny - some wonderful, inventive arrangements of Noel Coward songs, a capella mediaeval madrigals, modern, self-commissioned classical and experimental works and many easy-listening (but far from muzak) pop covers (their singing of Neil Sedaka's 'God Bless Joanna' is one of the loveliest things I've ever heard) make up just part of their oeuvre... 'The Beatles Collection' visits many of these styles (all a capella) and includes some excellent versions of songs including 'Michelle', 'Eleanor Rigby' and 'And I Love Her'.

Another album I picked up on LP back in 1987 was 'Sergeant Pepper Knew My Father' - a collection of Beatles covers by bands of...1987 and released as part of the 'It was twenty years ago today' celebrations. When I pulled it out for this article I was pleased to see that the songs have outlasted all the featured artists! While I recall most of the NAMES of the artists featured the only ones I really KNOW are 'Wet, Wet, Wet' (who, of course, had the big hit with 'With a Little Help') and Frank Sidebottom, a cartoon-esque comic character with a spherical, fibreglass head! Let no-one claim that The Beatles are the sole property of the highbrow!

And, while talking of anniversaries, Google will no doubt have already brought to your attention the 40th birthday of the redoubtable 'Sesame Street' - a show which, as its viewers will know, features its own 'Sesame Beatles', well known for wonderful pastiches like 'Letter B' (Let It Be) and 'Hey Food'...they deserve a mention here!

It's OK...I know what you've been waiting for...and your 'proff' won't let you down! I can't complete this blog entry without going 'trekkie', can I? Love them or loathe them, the Beatles covers of Captain Kirk and Mr Spock simply cannot go unmentioned! William Shatner's dramatic, spoken interpretation of 'Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds' was voted the 'Worst Beatles Cover Version Ever' in a 2203 poll - beating Pinky & Perky's 'All My Loving' and Damon Hill's 'Drive My Car'...Yet Shatner's rendition has a cult appreciation too...it is SO bad it's actually quite good...if you get what I mean - either way it has to be heard to be believed (check it out on YouTube!). Leonard Nimoy's covers are barely better, sad to say!

And the number of Beatles covers will continue to grow, of that I am certain, for many years to come. The best music never dies (even when someone tries to kill it!) - the songs have survived the best efforts of Candy Flip, Will Young and Mrs Miller - just as Mozart's Piano Sonatas survived my clumsy efforts!

Let it be!

Blowing my own trumpet...well...euphonium!

I am blessed!

No...seriously, I am...and what's more...I know it and appreciate it!

It's been a while since the last blog...I've been a bit 'down' with the depression, busy at times but not at others and, this week I've spent 'home alone' with 2 sons at their mum's for a few days and the other on a church youth holiday in Belgium.

Last week was dominated by the recording of another CD...and I'm amazed how 'blasé' that must come across; so I've taken stock of such physical achievements - and hence the profession of my 'blessedness' apparent above! This blog piece is NOT intended as a piece of shameless self-promotion or big-headedness - merely a reflection of how blessed I really consider myself to have been in this life!

I'm no household name...but I've had opportunities I know a lot of other people would love to have had! I have been playing concerts as a euphonium soloist since I was 12...back in 1974 (which, honestly, doesn't feel as long ago as it clearly is!). If I had a pound for every time I've played 'Song of the Brother', 'Ransomed', 'La Belle Americaine', 'Euphony' and 'The Better World' I guess I'd have a healthy savings account balance today! I gave up counting at 125 towns and cities in England, Scotland and Wales...and can add more in France, Belgium, Germany, Switzerland, Holland, Norway and at least 5 cities in California to the list!

I held the record high mark for the Associated Board Grade 8 examination when I passed it, aged 15, back in 1978...I was told at music college that had I been as proficient on a more 'fashionable' instrument I could have made a career of it: suffice to say that 3 decades later I have never made one penny from blowing my euphonium!!! I have had compliments a-plenty, featured solos on two CDs and a review of my playing in a very highly-regarded online publication which resulted from a guest performance I made with a band a few years ago.

( http://www.4barsrest.com/reviews/concerts/con202.asp?l=uk )

Last week's CD was the latest (and I reckon it will be best so far) by Portsmouth Citadel Band. Recorded in four sessions over three days in Warsash Church it will be titled 'Deep Harmony' and features music by composers as varied as Ravel (Bolero), Gullidge (The Fount) and Peter Graham (The Last Amen). It will also mark a considerable step-up in quality by the band in terms of playing, reflecting their recent improvements under the baton and leadership of my good friend John Hanchett.

It should have been enough if I'd only played the euphonium...

...But I have also been able to perform in many other ways: I have sung for as long as I can remember - I made my stage debut in the musical 'Take Over Bid' when aged just 5 and a couple of years later remember being made aware that, in singing the hymn 'Now I Belong to Jesus' in a church service, I had raised a few smiles in the congregation by innocently claiming to have once been 'lost in sin's degradation'. (I was not such an evil child, I promise!)

After college I travelled Britain and Europe with the rock band 'Blood & Fire'. I was NOT as proficient on the electric guitar but I think I did an adequate job there, also featuring as a singer, trombonist and part-time additional keyboardist on their first two albums (then only released on cassette but now on CD!) Since then my 'rock' career went through 'Cross Purposes' and prog-rock band 'The Big Picture'...the latter band has still not officially split but it is 5 years since our last gig...it is a problem when the guitarist lives in Leeds, the drummer in Norfolk, our bassist is in the RAF - even if Alvin and I are only 25 miles or so apart in Haslemere and Portsmouth!

Yet I've done plenty of singing on my own, written 286 songs (to date) and have had my own solo CD of Christmas songs on sale for the last 7 or 8 years. In fact, I've been singing ever since childhood and featured as a vocal soloist on three more CDs that I know are listened to all around the world - those made by Portsmouth Citadel's Songsters. Although I have not sung on the last few PCS CDs I have been the main pianist/accompanist on two of the last three (including 'Take My Life' released earlier this year: http://www.amazon.co.uk/Take-My-Life-Let-Be/dp/B001WO9QOO/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=music&qid=1256831625&sr=1-1 )

So...I AM BLESSED! Not just in terms of the talents God gave me but to have been able to offer those gifts back to Him in so many varied ways! It's been a heck of a life to experience ( I managed to fit in over 20 years music teaching in secondary schools) and I've loved every minute of the performing opportunities God has given me...and I hope it continues for many years to come!


I hope it doesn't go too far on my part to add a little even to the thespian theme I hinted at above too. That I've been able to sing and appear in 2 movies (one in the lead role!) and on stage, TV and radio has been a great added bonus! I've played on Ruth Rendell's 'Inspector Wexford', TV Drama 'The Blind Date' (starring Zara Turner) and, of course sung outside the Queen Vic in 'Eastenders'! On stage I've played Herr Schultz in 'Cabaret', Frank Strang in 'Equus', Mr Bumble in 'Oliver!', Henry VIII in 'Kings & Queens', Peter in 'The Witness', Father Christmas in 'Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe' (for which I also wrote the incidental music) and several more...I even have my own page and video clip on IMDb ( http://uk.imdb.com/name/nm2218461/ )

Enough,then, for now...that's all about me, your 'proffsky' (show-offsky!)...and, as you will have seen - I am blessed!

The Screechy Music!!!!!

One of my lovely readers recently commented on her Facebook status that she wished her college teacher had not played "the screechy music" on the day she had a headache! I couldn't help but smile and ask the source of the accused quasi-musical screams! I suspected the most screechy* of all screechy pieces I have ever encountered - in fact I could hear it in my head as soon as I recalled it.

I speak of Penderecki's extra-ordinary 'Threnody to the Victims of Hiroshima' no less! I first heard this in a composition workshop session at Music College back in 1981 and found it disturbing, challenging, riveting, thrilling and horrendous...all at the same time! The piece (written for 52 string instruments) requires its performers to interpret symbols, play on the 'wrong' side of the bridge, deliberately use 'quarter tones', slap the instruments and create textures and tone clusters.

(I had already encountered tone clusters by that time through my brass band experiences. Composer Paul Patterson made quite a 'splash' in 1974 with the highly controversial 'Chromascope'. When he wrote this work for 'Besses o'the Barn' band it was certainly unlike anything ever heard before in the brass band world! Even more reactionary was 'Cataclysm' a year or so later. I had played 'Cataclysm' myself and was intrigued by instructions on my euphonium part to 'play as high/low a note as possible' - and to improvise a 'triple forte' ending! No two performances could ever be the same (shades of the Indian music I wrote about a few weeks ago). I was even 'inspired' to compose my own piece in a similar vein - a massive work for large brass band with 8 timpani, tuned a semitone apart, and a synthesizer! Called 'Creation and Destruction', I wrote it for a college composition competition - only to be disctinctly embarrassed when Patterson himself was invited to 'judge' the contest!!!!)


I'd guess that fewer than one in a thousand music afficionados have heard even a portion of 'Threnody' but an attempt should, perhaps, be made to experience it at least once...even if 'just to see'! I don't think its the type of piece you would ever sit down to enjoy, it would not aid relaxation...and certainly is not the choice to accompany a romantic dinner!**

I was wrong in my guesswork anyway! The (as yet unidentified) piece in question was composed by the great 20th Century French composer Olivier Messiaen (1908-92). I have studied and enjoyed several of Messiaen's works (though I would still consider myself some way below an 'expert'!)

The two things I mostly associate with Messiaen are birdsong and colour:

Birdsong in music is another of those recurring themes. As long ago as Haydn and Mozart, then later Beethoven (in the Pastoral Symphony) composers had written music intended to represent birdsong - followed by Mahler (most notably in Symphony 7) and many other composers - but Messiaen took its use to new levels. An extremely keen ornithologist himself, he encouraged his students to listen intently to the songs of the birds. His 1952 audition piece for flautists wishing to enter the Paris Conservatoire was based entirely on the actual song of the blackbird. Later works such as 'Reveil des Oiseaux' (1953) and (the piece I first encountered of his) 'Couleurs de la Cite Celeste' (1963) feature 'actual' birdsong quite extensively as does, in fact, most of his work from the 1950s onward. (Many tapes of recorded birdsong were found in Messiaen's paraphernalia along with manuscript representations of them in standard notation).

Colour, of course, is another vital ingredient in both Patterson's 'Chromascope' and much of Messiaen's work - indeed it is implied in the very title of 'Cite Celeste'... I was impressed as a young musician with the compositional techniques Messiaen used to 'recreate' the depths of a cave and the way sounds passed through it...I remember him using deep, loud notes or chords, with very quiet 'overtones' or fake-harmonics high above it - almost imperceptible in the soundscape, yet just enough to manage completely to provide that 'depth' and send a shiver down the spine!

In 'Couleurs' and other works, such as 'Des Canyons aux Etoiles' Messiaen actually wrote the colours he was trying to represent onto the conductor's score - to aid the interpretation, however, not to influence the listener... I relate this to the way Debussy put the titles of his, often programmatic, Preludes (e.g. Voiles, La Cathedrale Engloutie, Minstrels etc) in brackets UNDERNEATH the piece...as if to encourage the listener to imagine for themselves before referring to the original intention.

And that brings me back to the brass band again. I'm not sure if it was on the same of my father's brass band LPs (although I'd like to think I am right in recalling that it may have been) on which I first encountered 'Chromascope' sat another piece that tried to represent colour: 'Spectrum' by Gilbert Vinter. This has always been one of my favourite pieces of band music and, in contrast with much of the music I have written about today, it is largely melodic and conventional in its harmonies and structure - and, like the others, well worth a listen!

Like Kate's teacher, when I was teaching I loved to present music to my students that would challenge their accepted ideals, widen their horizons...make them ask questions! I once went too far, I seem to recall...'8 Songs for a Mad King' by Peter Maxwell-Davies was too much for any GCSE group and I learned a lesson myself in class that day!!!

So, the only shame, as far as I'm concerned, was that Kate had a headache on the day in question...maybe she will listen again with a clear head (couple of paracetamol??) and an open mind...and she will, as we all will, find that music can usually find a way to speak to us in that very special way.

****************************************************************

*I have to acknowledge there is no such word as 'screechy' but...you know what it means nevertheless!

**fans of the 'Manic Street Prechers' may prove the exception - the Welsh rockers used an excerpt from the piece as an introduction to their track 'You Love Us' back in 1991.

October the Ninth

9th October, 1909 - Gwendoline Maud Brinkworth (my paternal grandmother) was born in Cardiff.

9th October, 1940 - John Winston Lennon was born in Liverpool. Gwen was 30.

9th October, 1962 - Marc Owen Harry was born in Wrexham. Gwen was 52 and John was 22.

9th October, 1975 - Sean Ono Lennon was born in New York. Gwen had died earlier that year, John was 35, Marc became a teenager.

**********************************************

Thus is my own family and the Lennon family forever linked. I so much wanted one of my own children to have been born on 9th October...but was not even close! Is it too late? It's my turn, after all! Maybe my (soon to be ex) wife and I never had enough early nights in January...

Nevertheless, the 9/10 date each year, having imposed itself four times in sixty-five years (against odds of 'goodness knows how many' to 1*) it is little wonder the number 9 held such a fascination for either John or I, is it? (#9 Dream, One After 909, "Revolution 9/Number Nine" etc.)

In fact, the number 9 crops up very often throughout the world of music - look at the number of composers who stopped (for one reason or another!) at 9 symphonies? 9/8 time (compound triple), nonet, the interval, several pop and rock band names (e.g. Nine Inch Nails, 999) and album titles (e.g. Public Image Ltd, Fairport Convention)...even John's fellow Beatle had an album called 'Cloud Nine'...

John would have been 69 today, my Nana Harry 'one after 99' - telegram from the Queen time...alas she has been returned to her Maker for some 34 years. But John is forever 40.

My mum woke me on that Tuesday morning in December 1980 with the words 'prepare yourself for a shock'...but nothing could have prepared me for her news...I sat on my bedroom floor tuning my radio from station to station trying to find one that would tell me John Lennon was NOT dead - but they all did the opposite! I made a 'shrine' in my bedroom window with album covers and my guitar before heading off to school. At school, my friend Colin Nicholson and I asked permission to hold a gathering during the next day's General Study period to play John's music...

...Permission was granted - on condition that for every record we played we performed 2 songs live! So, the next day, we prepared our little concert - expecting two or three others to attend. So many wanted to pay their respects to the murdered ex-Beatle we had to move out of the room into a bigger hall and Colin and I performed in front of rows of crying girls wearing glassless, round spectacles, Beatles scarves and wigs. It was the first time I ever sang while accompanying myself on guitar!

A few weeks before I had taken my place in the queue for one of the first ever 'midnight openings' in Newcastle City centre...to purchase the first new LP by John Lennon since 1975. 'Double Fantasy' had sat on my turntable ever since. The album has been unfairly criticised since its release but, for me, it's a gem of a record! I think much of the negativity is connected with the tired and ridiculous Yoko-bashing that still goes on in Beatles forums today. I've always found Yoko an intriguing, innovative artist - both in the musical and 'art' sense: one of the things that led John back to recording in 1980 was hearing female 'new-wave' singers like Lene Lovich whose 'new' sound was an old one to people who'd heard Yoko's output for the last ten years!

Yoko shared 'Double Fantasy' with John, alternating tracks (almost) throughout. Her first song on the album, 'Kiss, Kiss, Kiss', was one of those that, while living at home, I had to turn the volume down or quickly plug headphones in (along with tracks like 'You're Breaking My Heart' by Nilsson) for Yoko loudly and enthusiastically fakes a prolonged multiple orgasm as part of it...I wonder if that had ever been done on record before???

John's songs on the record I grew to love very quickly - '(Just Like) Starting Over', 'Woman', 'Watching The Wheels' and 'Beautiful Boy' in particular. The last of these became even more poignant in the weeks ahead - a wonderful love song to his 5 year-old son, Sean. "I can hardly wait to see you come of age," John sang. Of course, he never saw that day...

...But it does bring us round to where we started, doesn't it. 'Little' Sean, John's 'beautiful boy' is 34 today...just 6 years younger than his dad was when his life was stolen. So HAPPY BIRTHDAY, Sean...and John...and Nana Harry...oh and me too!

*I have several friends who are Maths fiends - none of whom I've been able to contact in the last 24 hours to calculate this one for me...if anyone comes up with a figure I'll re-edit the post!!!!

Oh good...National Poetry Day!!!

I used to love this day when I was teaching! Quite often I would entertain my classes with a newly written ode for the day...but more often it was the staff room who got the benefit - I once remember struggling my way through about 25 staff members at St Luke's with a limerick composed for each!

I started writing poems when very young - I recently found an old exercise book from 'Millbridge Upper', my primary school in Liversedge (Nr Heckmondwike), Yorkshire. Amongst imaginative stories about Aladdin's Lamp (no boring 'rubbing it' for me... the inscription on my lamp read: 'stuff stinkbombs down the spout and you will get a surprise!' In the margin - in red - Mrs Ingham's reply read clearly, 'so will you if you write this sort of thing again!') and King Xerxes sits a poem, complete with pencil drawing carefully coloured in: it's title was 'The Ustranoch'. It begins thus:

"The Ustranoch comes from Uranus

It's body is made from jellyus"

Maybe an inauspicious start - but I was only 7 at the time!

Poetry began to flow on a family holiday in 1981. We used to spend a couple of weeks each summer in one of the Salvation Army's holiday homes - alternating between Broadstairs, Folkestone, Westgate and Cliff House near Bournemouth. In retrospect, I'd say we were at Cliff House the most but that 1981 holiday was remarkable for many reasons... For a start it coincided with probably the most exciting Test Match of all time - the one that led to the England v Australia cricket series becoming known forever as 'Botham's Ashes'. The first item I wanted to take to the beach each day was my transistor radio...and I sat on the sand listening to Johnners, Boilers, Sir Fred, The Bearded Wonder etc. day after day as England toiled...*

My dad had turned his radio off in disgust as England lapsed to 135 for 7 in their 2nd Innings - following on and still nearly a hundred behind...history goes on to aver that at least two Aussies placed bets at 500 to 1 on an England win, never believing for a second that there was the remotest chance...But Sir Ian had other ideas and blasted 149, ably assisted in building a lead by the unlikely duo of Chris Old and Graham Dilley.

By midday the next day (it was Tuesday, July 21st, by the way) nobody had even ventured onto the beach - the tiny TV room was so overcrowded they had to move the TV into the lounge...and then even into the dining room as Bob Willis skittled the Australians out to take 8 for 43 and led the troops to the unlikeliest of all wins and the start of an irrepressable run of form that lasted the rest of the summer!

Please excuse that massive digression as I veer off-piste...it's the Ronnie Corbett syndrome again! Blame it on my passion for writing, for cricket and this absurd memory I was blessed with (I don't have to Google these facts and figures - they just sit waiting for the chance to leap out of my head!!!) Eight days later Charles and Diana were married at St Paul's and we crowded round the TV again in Westgate...but the excitement even of that Royal Wedding Day could not match the Test Match!**

Back to poetry...it was on that holiday that I also took a blue school exercise book and, inspired by an Edward Lear and Monty Python kick I'd been on, I began to write nonsense poems. Every evening I would be summoned by other guests to entertain them with the fruits of my day's labour - and they fed my writing habit with copious laughter and merriment - particularly one dear lady, Olive Daws, who laughed hysterically poem after poem! (Olive is the mother of David - now famous as one of the best cornet players in the world, of course!)

...And I've written poems ever since. I remember that once, while part of an entertainment team at Butlins in Bognor Regis I was challenged to write three poems in an hour on subjects nominated by the audience - I just found them today before I started writing this piece! Around 1990 I was persuaded by friends and family to assemble an official collection of poems and this I did, paying to publish it myself on school equipment. It was half a book of funny and nonsense poems and half of profound or reflective poetry. The first run of 100 copies sold out very quickly, as did a second run and I even made more after that...one or two tattered copies might still be knocking around somewhere. It was called 'Cortina Biriani' in deference to 'Carmina Burana', the famous piece of music by Karl Orff - the cover featured a plate of curry...sans meat but littered with rusting Ford cars, of course!

If I had to pick one poem to mark today, though, it would not be one from 'Cortina Biriani' but one that would bring me back to music (once again...all roads lead to music...) I wrote this poem while waiting for the last few finishers to leave a very boring Geography Exam I was 'invigilating' in 1994. Harry Nilsson had recently died and I wrote the poem to mark the passing of the singer/songwriter I still acknowledge today to have been my favourite pop/rock musician ever and also the most inspiring influence on my own songwriting.

It was later published in the Nilsson Fanzine 'Everybody's Talkin'' and, when we met in 2001, Curtis Armstrong (noted Nilsson historian and, of course, famous actor) told me it was his favourite poem ever. Most John Lennon/Beatles fans will be aware of John Lennon's 'Lost Weekend' - a period of some 18 months when he and Yoko went through a separation in the mid 1970s. John spent some of that time living in a drug and booze filled house with fellow hell-raisers including Harry, Ringo and Keith Moon (drummer from 'The Who').

John agreed (while drunk, he later claimed) to produce Nilsson's next LP - unfortunately for all concerned, by the time the sessions were underway Harry had raised hell to such an extent that he had ruptured a vocal cord and was coughing up blood whenever he tried to sing! His famously smooth, gliding baritone was reduced to a croaky rasp...yet he tried to hide the truth from Lennon and an LP was, finally, released - Lennon crediting his contributions to a pseudonym 'Dr Winston O'Boogie' - even the seemingly innocent cover of the LP (above) features toy letter-blocks...a D and an S...with a 'rug' inbetween...you get it?

I'm glad they made the album - 'Pussy Cats' - two of my favourites working together...it's not my favourite Nilsson album...but it's Harry and John, you know??? To other fans it obviously IS a favourite - American band 'The Walkmen' re-recorded the entire project as a tribute a few years ago! You can find out lots more about the album if you follow the Nilsson links from http://www.marcharry.com/ but...for now, here is the poem in honour of Harry, John and National Poetry Day 2009:

Pussy Cats

Sing a song of Schmilsson

A bottle full of rye,

O'Boogie, Moon and Starkey

Soon drank the bottle dry

So they opened up another

As the tapes began to roll

And, while Harry 'laughed his ass off',

The bottle took its toll.

And they 'had their share of good times'

And their 'spirits' kept them high

And they left us with an album -

And they left us wondering why

The Almighty, in His wisdom,

When He said 'My will be done'

Deemed 'pussy cats' get nine lives...

But our heroes only one?

(copyright HarryMusic 1999)

*these were the affectionate names beloved by all England cricket supporters who listened to the national institution known as Test Match Special on Radio 4 each summer - in turn the names referring to the wonderful Brian Johnston, Trevor Bailey, Fred Trueman and Bill Frindall...

**unbeknownst to either of us at the time, it later transpired that between these two momentous events my future wife and I had met for the very first time...or at least been present in the same Salvation Army service in Ramsgate...we realized many years later this was the case when we recalled the item for young people in the meeting involved a game of Chinese Whispers with the message to be passed along being "if it rains on Wednesday a lot of people will be very disappointed".