Home is where the Music is



When I was a young pup and 'twas bliss in that very dawn to be alive', I would sometimes take a relatively expensive leap in the dark and fork out for an album that I knew absolutely nothing about. I was hungry for the new. You didn't get much opportunity to hear new stuff back then. The Peel programme was an obvious source but, generally it was too much all at once. It seemed as if the entire thing consisted of unheard of and challenging material.


Most of the time I could get by on what I already had - or what my mates would lend me - but, occasionally, just occasionally, I needed something else. I would forego a weekend on the razz with my mates and invest in the unknown.

Many a time I missed the target - forgetable albums from forgotten 'pushers of the envelope'. But, on two occasions I hit paydirt.

Curtis Mayfield. Roots. Was a revelation. I loved it and love it still but I'd already heard some of Mayfield's stuff so it really wasn't out of the blue.

Early in 1972 I would have been 17. When the 'Neu Musik' bug hit I would head off to Manchester on a Saturday morning, pound notes in hand, loon pants flapping in the wind and platform soles adding a good four inches to my snake hipped frame. First stop would be the second hand record stalls on Church Street - now sadly gone. There was no Vinyl Exchange back then - shame, I would've been one of their regulars. After that, down to St Ann's Square to 'Paperchase'.

Upstairs it was a regular provider of stationery and suchlike but, for those in the know, downstairs was an impossibly cool record shop. Everything about the place oozed uber-chic. It was only the absolute certainty of the young that gave me balls to even enter. Looking back it wouldn't have surprised me if Jack Black had been disdainfully sneering at all and sundry from behind the counter but usually it would be an unattainable hippie Goddess with impeccable musical taste and flowing, etheral locks and huge eyes. A few years later I nipped in while in Manchester with my Grandad to pick some esoteric rarity up when I heard my Grandad ask the vision behind the counter if she had a copy of 'Morning Has Broken' by Edward Woodward. I never went back.

But I digress. On this particular day I bought an album that soon went out of print and, after years of trying to find it on CD or anything has finally just been re-issued. Hugh Masekela's 'Home is Where the Music Is'.  If you have a Spotify account then here you go: Hugh Masekela – Home Is Where The Music Is,  If not  you'll have to make do with the samples on Amazon.  I was going to post a track using Soundcloud but David Geffen won't let me.

It was the cover artwork that first attracted me.  Modern representations of Africans that seemed to me then - and now - vital and honest.  I hoped it would reflect the music within the sleeve and I wasn't wrong.  The opening Fender Rhodes riff on 'Part of a Whole' had me hooked and from there on in it wasn't hard for me to wallow.  It has become a part of my personal soundtrack.  I can't really remember a time without me knowing every solo, bass line, drum break and exquisite ensemble interaction.

The original's in the loft with a few hundred other long players.  The CD reissue has most - but not all - of the album sleeve's artwork and the 1972 back cover portrait of Mr Masekela is now the front cover, but you can't have everything as countless adults have been telling me all my life.

And what a line up - Masekela and Dudu Pukwana, Larry Willis, Makaya Ntshoko, Eddie Gomez with Caiphus Semenya providing a lot of the material and producing as well.

January 1972 it was recorded.  I'd just started working as a wages clerk in a local builders.  I just knew that one day I'd be sat where Larry Willis was.

Memories.......

Just before last Christmas I wrapped myself in copious layers and braved the frozen Northern air to meet up with Eddie the Slim.  We were off to a gig.  I am Kloot were playing at Manchester Cathedral.  I quite like I am Kloot and was happy to fork £18 or whatever it was to see them, but I must admit to being more intrigued by the notion of the Cathedral as a venue.  

Dating from the 15th century this Gothic magnificence is as fine a place as any for the more understated type of gig.  AC/DC would probably find it restricting but Hayseed Dixie would be just right.  On this particular night Kloot were just perfect.  Low key songs of angst were sombrely suited to the gloomy interior.  The only drawback was that it was cold, but then again outside it was bloody freezing and snow was blowing.

Two impromptu and extremely busy bars had been set up at the rear serving a range of bottled beers which added to the overall ambience.  I was a little fearful that there would be no alcohol on account of the Lord and everything so that was an added bonus.

It was a great night apart from one little grumble.  The toilets were an absolute disgrace!  Not, I must add, due to the defecatory habits of our fellow gig-goers, but the facilities on offer.

Three distressed cublicles leaning against the east wall devoid of light and tap water.  Moreover, three UNISEX distressed cublicles.  Standing in the queue as the snow whipped around, slowly shuffling forward with a sense needful dread was not a pleasant experience I can tell you.  Finally getting in one of the damn things was akin to a particularly tough Krypton Factor task.  Pitch black for a start.  Any light would have be acquired by opening the door as you took to the task in hand with a shuffling queue of onlookers to witness your every move.  To add an extra frisson of excitement to the whole enterprise, each cubicle was pitched at a slight angle.  It was a memorable enough experience standing up, God knows what it must've been like squatting above it. And no hand washing facilities either.  

And there was me thinking cleaniness was next to Godliness.

Post gig we retired to one of Manchester's finest hostelries: The Hare and Hounds on Shudehill - Just round the corner from The Band on the Wall.  A Joseph Holts pub and a mighty fine one at that.  The interior is all Victorian tiles and mahogony.  It's a compact little place and a pint of Joey Holt's bitter will set you back about  £2:00.  The trouble with Holts' beer is it doesn't travel, so to try it at it's best you'll have to come to Manchester.  Worth it though.

Slim and I were on our second or third pint when a couple in their early thirties sat at a nearby table.  They overheard us talking about the gig and assumed we had been to see Weller at the MEN Arena.  They had and started telling us about how great he was.  In between this they somehow manged to convey the fact that they had a three quarters of a million pound house in Worsley and had dragged themselves up from the backstreets of Salford.  It was obvioulsy a tale perfected in the constant re-telling and we wondered how many other poor buggers they had bored rigid.  Swanking my Mother would've called it.

During the husband's critique of Weller's performance he pointed out the the Modfather had performed quite a number of Beatles' numbers.  This upset him apparently: "why does he have to spoil it playing shit by them Scouse bastards?"

Shit. From. Them. Scouse. Bastards.

Arsehole

Who knows where the time goes......

Ooooh..I wonder where that month went?  Another one down the pan, zipped by like a nanosecond and now gone forever.  When I look back in a few weeks, that month will be a vague mish-mash of memories only a few of which will be readily retrievable:  a lovely sunny afternoon in our recently reclaimed garden with family and friends enjoying the returning Spring.  A trip to Majorca with Youngest, Mrs Youngest and Littlest to laze around be run ragged chasing a toddler hither and thither.  A sun-dappled afternoon sat in the local watching Manchester City reach their first FA Cup Final since 1981 and doing it by beating our cross city rivals rather convincingly in the end.

So, quite memorable all told.

A month in which the Libyan situation was upgraded from 'a piece of piss' to 'uh oh this is a mess isn't it?'  A month in which the probable true amount of radiation leaking from Japan has - more than likely - been seriously under reported.  A month in which I have attended far too many leaving does for colleagues whose re-employment prospects are bleak to say the least.

A month in which Andrew Lansley has signalled a 'listening period' before he carries on with his non-mandated privatisation of the NHS.  A month in which the twine binding the coalition continued to chafe and fray  A month in which taxes went up, food prices went up, petrol prices went up and the value of our wages dropped.  A month in which Baronet Gideon Osbourne steamrollered on - disregarding many prominent experts advice - with his 'roll back the State' agenda.  We're all in it together y'know.

It's gone now though.  A fading memory.  I wonder what'll happen next month?  Well I know I'll be flying to Barcelona for a week the day after the Cup Final and I also know that I will be pithily unarsed about the upcoming betrothal.  Other than that though, who knows?

 

"And the seasons they go round and round
And the painted ponies go up and down
We're captive on the carousel of time
We can't return we can only look
Behind from where we came
And go round and round and round
In the circle game"

One thing that could happen next month is that Stoke City could find it beneficial to them to throw a match. 

Here's how:-

 

Manchester City win the FA Cup Final leaving Stoke Runners Up.  Winning the FA Cup guarantees an Europa League place but, if City achieve a league position of fourth or higher then their Europa League place will go to the FA Cup Runners Up - Stoke.  City should have played Stoke in a league game on the same day as the final.  The rearranged fixture will be played the week after the Cup and if Stoke lose, City could bag 4th spot thus allowing Tony Pulis's boys a crack at Europe next season.

 

Harry Redknapp isn't happy.  Oh no, he isn't happy at all.