The Bottom End

Typing into the machine and thinking of Bukowski and how I listened to Fire Station again the other day and how it made me feel humble and sort of tragic…like watching The Ice Storm again which I did this week and thinking about mortality and worth. Still I won’t bore with my ideological procrastinations. We have a new bass player, her name is Karen Leatham and her arrival has sprung our collective steps and added to the possibilities and the potentials of what is to come. She’s really rather good. We started rehearsals proper last week and all went swimmingly well which was nice. We are booking UK shows in Oct/Nov. We were also pleased to discover upon returning to our Salford Lads Club attic that Archie, who’s been at the lads Club since the year dot has been awarded an MBE for youth work; we just need to remember to salute him next time we see him and offer our most sincere congratulations. On the personal front there are a few bits of media type things coming off, I guest once more on BBC6 music’s Rocket Science with Rob Hughes in a parallel universe on 19th August around 4pm on the first day of the football season but don’t let that put you off. We’ll be discussing the past and how it compares to future from the template of the music press though from which year I’m not sure as yet. A week later on Sun 27th August I’m standing in for the seminal Mike Joyce on his Revolution show 4-7pm and you can listen online if you like. It’s the perfect excuse to play favourite records and talk about anything that steals the fancy. I haven’t done a radio show for some time so it will be a bit of a challenge but one I’m looking forward to. I’ll be playing tracks from the new HELENE record ROUTINES which is currently monopolising my in car iPod. Try and have a listen. I have become captivated by the record which happens so infrequently I feel I just have to sing it’s praises whenever the opportunity presents. Today we’re off to see a friends play, it’s one of those walk about from scene to scene type happenings, you know the type, where you arrive late head for the bar and realise the bar is part of the the set and actors are improvising upon your innocence. That kind of thing happened to me once though I like to think I rose to the occasion; still I like to think a lot of things. Time for bed, VPx

Normality Bites

As the days float on I seem to be suspended in Slow Motion which is my favourite Man album though you need to well over the popular hill to remember...it's Jim’s funeral is on Friday, many thanks to those who sent in condolences, much appreciated. All I have to do now is help carry the coffin, never done that before am slightly trepidated if I’m honest which I have been accused of being occasionally and mostly to to my detriment. Craig also has the slow motion thing going on, our symptoms have syncopated into a kind of post recording fatigue as we load our gear back into the musty loft of our Salford Lads Club rehearsal space where they’ve changed the locks for all the usual reasons. Luckily Leon is on hand to let us in and it feels like we are returning home after operations overseas…Blackburn can have that effect but on another tack altogether…Some people might have seen a rather dubious posting on the internet last week concerning the new record and how it featured Andy Rourke and Mike Joyce playing together and how it was recorded in a college etc… complete tosh generated I think by the over enthusiastic juniors at BBC Radio Lancashire who have apologised, anyway, we issued a statement thus as all manner of sites were covering the extremely tall story…NME, 6Music, Morrissey solo etc. In short Andy hasn’t rejoined the band, Mike and Andy still DJ together and are on speaking terms no less. Sorted. On the subject of bass players we are still looking after a brief flirtation with Jules from Marion who unfortunately returned to Brighton for personal reasons before we really got going. So if you play the bass, live in Manchester and have all your own hair then please do get in touch. You never know. Seriously I’m joking about the hair…but I’m not sure Craig is. For the retrospective record our connection with Blackburn College involves their facilities, namely the filming of the DVD which comes with the new album, it’s one of those fly on the wall things where we all talk about the how’s and whys and wherefores of making the record. I look about 58 but don’t let that put you off. It’s a lighting thing I keep telling myself. The college were also involved in the albums artwork, again we were able to use their facilities, thanks to John and Emma for seeing the photography project through, despite the vanity of the older generation we got there in the end. The record looks great and Dingo [Ben’s dog] not only gate-crashed the photo shoot but made it onto the front sleeve. The release date will be in October sometime, we’re just waiting on the distributor to confirm. He’s in a band himself but if I told you which one you’d never believe me. More and less of this and that to follow…the summers nearly over thank god, VP x

Jim

Jim Wilkes 1935-2006

Playing on the Pier once again

Track 7 on the new record 'the fall and rise of Vinny Peculiar', as previously noted here in this occasional diary, is the lyrical creation of my great uncle Jim who gave me the poem a few years ago because I loved it. He wrote loads of poems but didn’t always share them. I last saw him a week ago following his discharge from hospital [I saw him there too] where he was being treated for cancer and other complications I didn’t quite get to the bottom of. He is now very poorly and we are some way beyond the miracles stage. All through my life he has been an inspiration to me so I am feeling incredibly sad and humble and hopeless just now, sat here thinking and waiting and trying to make sense of what seems inevitable. He provided adventure in my childhood, from climbing mountains to scouring junk shops and offered wisdom and advice in adulthood, divorce, kids, all the hard to deal with stuff. A man so totally possessed of life seeing him reduced to this is just criminal. He is a truly great uncle. I saw him last week, probably for the last time, and played him the track ‘Playing on the Pier’. We were sat in his music room, surrounded by old jazz posters of bands he’s had over the years, framed photos from places like Dudley Town Hall in 1957 any number of festivals, maps and memories just hanging there. It was the first time he’d heard it. We listened and he approved and we talked about the sense of family history the poem evokes and how I’d used guitars and not a trumpet and part of me wishes we had used trumpet but he wasn’t able to play it what with his health and really it was him or no one. Something poetic happened that day and one day I will try and put it into words. Now he is unconscious and waiting to go under. He will of course live on in the hearts of those who have been lucky enough to know him and indeed to love him. This goes out to all; especially to Dot his wife and to his children with all my love, Alan x