From Romford to Nashville

What I know about Spencer Cullum and tuppence wouldn't get yer hair cut. However, what I can tell you is that he was born and raised in Romford, Essex and now resides in Nashville, Tennessee. I can also tell you that his 2021 album - Spencer Cullum's Coin Collection - is something of a gem. When I first lowered the needle onto the opening groove I thought I'd got him pegged: singer songwriter (with some fantastic tunes and enchanting imagery) playing in a modern idiom trying to sound relevant whilst at the same time not afraid to tip his hat in the direction of Nick Drake. A bit like this... 

Spencer Cullum - Iminent Shadow (From BBC 6 Music session with Marc Riley)

 

However, just when I thought I'd rumbled him, about two thirds of the way in, Cullum parks up his, not unpleasant, folk noodlings and changes gear quite spectacularly. I was not ready for this: here's a live version of the track that when I first heard it was convinced I was listening to a factory mispressing.

Spencer Cullum - Dieterich Buxtehude (Live in London)

 

★ 

Any artist who tries to throw their listeners off the scent are, in my book, automatically elevated to the top of the class. Keep your audience on their toes would always have been my mantra if I'd ever been in a band.

As always I'd love to know what you think. Anyway, must dash - I've got an appointment with his next album (imaginatively titled) Spencer Cullum's Coin Collection 2.

Rest

The remit from the Cardiology Dept. when they sent me home was very simple. Rest. No driving. No lifting. No reaching. No stretching. To the point that when making a cup of tea boil only enough water for one cup. My body is healing they said. The wound, the chest cavity, the nerve endings are all slowly knitting back together and any exertions are to be kept to a bare minimum. And so, since my release papers from hospital were signed I've basically done nothing of a physical nature. Fuck all; a brisk daily walk just to get me out of the house for half an hour (my sanity is at stake here!) has been the sum total of my exercise regime.

My post-operative nurse is coming to assess me tomorrow to set up a rehabilitation programme which will hopefully see me dipping my toe back in the water of normality. I think I'm ready. 

 ★

It being a Monday I thought, after a long hiatus, I'd reconnect with the Monday Long Song thread. I've been playing a lot of Ashra recently. Hailing from Germany they carved out quite a successful career from 1976 to the late 90s straddling in equal measure krautrock, electronic & ambient - basically making the sort of racket I like. See what you think...

Ashra - Sunrain (1976)

Rhymes with magnum

I've mentioned Scott Lavene around these parts before; to the best of my knowledge the Essex punk poet flies mostly under the radar, occasionally popping up with standout albums like last year's Disneyland in Dagenham. The title track is (I think) a lyrical masterpiece and although it depicts a world I'm not overly familiar with (scoring drugs in sub-optimal high rise flats whilst dealing with equally sub-optimal lowlife) I can see in my mind's eye the views of east London and Essex - and the infamous A13 - afforded by these squalid flats in dodgy tenement blocks in Rainham.

Lavene is embarking on something of a low key 'tour' at the end of this month/early next and that he's coming to a pub in Northampton (The Black Prince, since you ask, and the nearest venue on his jaunt to me.) Under normal circs I'd have bombed down the M1 to see him and say hello, but I feel my post op recovery, whilst I'm getting stronger each day, may not allow such a sortie just yet. Next time, Scotty.

Scott Lavene - Disneyland in Dagenham (2024)

Dressin' fine, makin' time

I'm still not 100% sure why, but I listened to a lot of Roxy Music and, indeed, Bryan Ferry whilst laid up in hospital; morphine painkillers make you do strange things, that's all I can say. One song I kept coming back to time and again was a solo single Ferry brought out in 1974 on the Island label. I remember buying it as an ex-jukebox 45 (with the middle missing) from Grantham Market fifty years ago, can you believe. If memory serves it cost me the princely sum of 25p; money well spent if you ask me. At the time I couldn't get over the sheer ferocity of the riff that runs all the way through it - guitar, keyboard and horns joining forces to make up a relentless wall of sound.

Imagine my delight when I discovered (still in hospital) Ferry and his band recreating the track note for note at one of the BBC live sessions they used to put on regularly at St. Luke's in Shoreditch, central London. And what a band it is. Look left and you'll see ex-Womble & Sex Pistol Chris Spedding and look right, just behind the fabulous backing singers, you'll spot a young and ridiculously talented guitarist bunking off from school, seemingly. His name is Ollie Johnson and he helps bring The In Crowd to a new audience whilst the ever urbane front man just stands there leaning on his mic stand looking amazing in his made to measure sparkly black jacket*.

Bryan Ferry - The In Crowd (Live from 2007)

* He's come a long way since his retro pilot chic days. Here he is playing the very same number at a Roxy gig in 1976 c/w Phil Manzanera on guitar.

From the heart

A belated Happy New Year to you all. I knew, prior to going to hospital that I'd be out of commission for a wee while. Quite how long was/is something I'll have to judge on a day by day basis. Anyhoo, despite a couple of setbacks I'm now finally back ensonsed at Medd Towers. In between receiving visitors bearing hard boiled eggs and nuts I've also been penning a thank you letter to the hospital. In the last 30 days or so a number of very special NHS workers (they know who they are) who between them, it's no exagerration to say, saved my life. And for that I know I shall never be able to thank them. Not fully.  

Anyway, enough about me. How are you all doing? How was your Christmas and New Year? Good, bad or indifferent I'm sure it was well doucumented. Mine normally would have been but as I spent Christmas day, my birthday and New Year on an isolation ward, I can honestly say that my camera never saw as much as a bit of tinsel. However, my phone did come out to record one very special event: during one of my many explorations of my new heart (I lost count of the number of chest X-rays, ECGs & echo cardiograms I had while I was in there) I was asked to look at how magnificently my new aortic heart valve is performing...

That's quite enough exertion for now. I'm not sure if I'll be able to write anything meaningful at this time; I will, however, endeavour to visit other blogs and even leave the odd comment. In the meantime, it's good to be back. J x.