Winter Summary

And here we are at the end of another year, so it’s time for me to run the rule over the final few books and sounds I’ve come across, as well as listing all I’ve heard and seen during 2022. As ever, and I don’t know why this is, I’ve not done the same for the books I’ve read. Perhaps I will do next year. Certainly, I wish I could do more to recognise the achievements in print of Jim Gibson, Michael Keenaghan, David Keenan and Harry Pearson.

One important difference from previous years is that I’ve not placed the music I’ve consumed in rank order. For many years I’ve felt that gigs should be listed in that way, as the experience of live music is one highly dependent on many factors detached from the quality of music itself: venue, audience, security, company, and other variables. Hence, I’ve now decided to list gigs chronologically and releases alphabetically, as I’m acutely aware of the effort that goes into producing music, so I do not have the right to pass judgement on people who create sounds for the betterment of human culture. This is especially true as I’ve tentatively dipped my toe back into the waters of musical creativity, as well as the written word.

That said, it is an incontrovertible truth that Glasgow has always been one of the greatest cities for producing music, whether the musicians resident there are Scottish women, Irish American women or blokes from Leeds, as I’m sure Alex, Debbie and Jill would agree. It’s a great place to see gigs as well, whether that’s in a huge ballroom in the East End with a Quebecois post rock nonet deafening 2,000 beguiled devotees or a power trio of two local fellas and an Irish American genius laying waste to a snug cellar up the West End. You hear what I’m saying…

2022 Releases:

Burd Ellen – A Tarot of the Green Wood

Essential Logic – Land of Kali

Freakons – Freakons

Jill Lorean – This Rock

Posset – Fresh Like Irish Moss (given away free at 19 August gig)

Alex Rex – Mouthful of Earth

Sea Power – Everything was Forever

Soundcarriers – Waves

Swell Maps – 6 Track Ep (given away free with Jowe Head book)

Wire – Not About to Die

Earlier Releases:

Audiac – So Waltz

Bailey, Bevan, Hession, Yoshihide – Good Cop, Bad Cop

Bardo Pond – Bufo Alvarius

Bartholomew – Umami Music

Dementiol 3 – Last Test

Sandy Denny – Gold Dust

Herb Diamante and Friends – A Spoonful of Yeast

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Lift Yr Skinny Fists like Antennas to Heaven

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Slow Riot for Zero New Kanada

Godspeed You! Black Emperor – Yanqui U.X.O.

Mekons - Exquisite

Mogwai – Central Belters

The One Ensemble Orchestra – Other Thunders

Craig Scott’s Lobotomy – War is a Racket

Shunyata Improvisation Group - Balances

Shunyata Improvisation Group – Pivot Moments

Snowgoose – The Making of You

Various – Bring My Love to Connemara

2022 Gigs:

March 19: Shunyata Improvisation Group, Holy Name, Ryton

April 2: Teenage Fanclub, Beckett University, Leeds

April 15: Band of Holy Joy, The Engine Room, North Shields

April 30: Wedding Present, Boiler Shop, Newcastle

May 13: Shunyata Improvisation Group, Cobalt Studios, Newcastle

May 31: Jill Lorean, Hug & Pint, Glasgow

June 10: Shunyata Improvisation Group, Lit & Phil, Newcastle

July 10: Shunyata Improvisation Group, Saltwell Park, Gateshead

August 6: Sea Power, Crescent Club, Cullercoats

August 19: Posset, Lit & Phil, Newcastle

September 2: Ball Peen, Anarchy Brewery, Newcastle

September 18: Godspeed You! Black Emperor, Barrowlands, Glasgow

September 26: Snowgoose, The Engine Room, North Shields

September 30: Adam Johnson, Lit & Phil, Newcastle

October 14: Culver & Molar Crime, Bound Books, Whitley Bay

October 15: Dave Johns, The Stand, Newcastle

November 2: Bartholomew, The Globe, Newcastle

November 12: The Wedding Present, Gosforth Civic, Newcastle

November 19: Shunyata Improvisation Group, Shieldfield Centre, Newcastle

December 22: Bartholomew, John Marley Centre, Newcastle

 

My 2022 Gigs:

May 13: Escape, with Shunyata Improvisation Group, Cobalt Studios

August 2: Open Mic night, The Engine Room

August 19: TQ2, Lit & Phil, as BARTHOLOMEW / cusack

November 18: Just This, with Shunyata Improvisation Group, Shieldfield Centre

Now we turn to the final tranche of books and bands I’ve encountered at the back end of the year just ending.

Books:

Remarkably, I’ve finally finished Monument Maker by David Keenan. It was a tough ask, ploughing through 760 pages, but a rewarding one. Like reading Ulysses, it works best when you realise it isn’t one book, but several different ones combined. As a devotee of Keenan’s work, I’m delighted I can say I got through it, but for enjoyment purposes, I much preferred London is Dead by Michael Keenaghan. I first came across Michael as a fellow contributor in the same small press magazines that were publishing me. Along with Jim Gibson, who I also have praised here, as well as publishing the two of them in glove, Michael has now made it into print on his own. London is Dead is a distillation of the Keenaghan oeuvre in extremis: a violent, brutal and decidedly unsentimental portrait of the gangs of London, east and north west, present and past, and the strict, inflexible amoral codes they live by. The characters are real, the plot is credible and the narration rips along at breakneck pace. This is a real page turner and should be made into a film ASAP. I’m absolutely delighted Michael has been able to get a book in print as I’ve been saying for years, Michael Keenaghan is the finest underground prose writer in this country. He means it man.

At completely the other end of the scale, I adored Frank O’Connor’s Short Stories, Volume 2, transplanting myself to Cork city in the 1940s and 1950s, where the fallout from the War of Independence and The Emergency influenced life in a way that the already declining powers of the Church did not. We meet so many good people, trapped in failed marriages, whose ambitions and aspirations are hampered at every turn by thick priests, blustering schoolmasters and scheming local dignitaries that you’d think we’d dropped by on a Jack Lynch constituency surgery. An esoteric but delightful pleasure.

Same could be said of Harry Pearson’s latest wonderful cricket book. First of the Summer Wine is a detailed and devoted paean to three of Yorkshire CCC’s greatest players of the Golden Age, telling the lives and achievements of Schofield Haigh, George Herbert Hirst and Wilfred Rhodes. In exhaustive detail, we learn of the rise of The Triumvirate, as they were known, from local club cricket around the village of Kirkheaton near Huddersfield, to Ashes winning tours, multiple County Championship triumphs and a volume of cricket scarcely credible in these times. It, as ever, is told in Harry’s inimitable informative, but gentle style. How different I’d imagine David Peace’s tome about Boycott, close, Illingworth et al, will prove to be.

Music:

It has been an absolute pleasure to see Shunyata Improvisation Group on five separate occasions in 2022, during which time they have become one of my very favourite bands in the world. The last time I saw them this year was on Saturday 18 November at the Newbridge Project in the Shieldfield Centre, as part of a day long workshop entitled Just This; Between Zen and the Arts. I’ll just reinforce that date; I chose to spend a Saturday afternoon away from the playing fields of the Northern Alliance and in a community centre, attending several workshops and performances. This is how important things involved in this debate were to me, and to Shelley, who accompanied me.

First off, Shunyata’s Martin Donkin, the poet Alex Reed and the artist Catherine Dee introduced the topic. From my perspective, Martin was the person I was keen on listening to. He explained that his intent on forming the first iteration of Shunyata was to interpret the teachings of secular Buddhist philosopher Stephen Bachelor in terms of music. Bachelor’s credo is contained in the mnemonic ELSA -:

E – Embrace reality

L – Let go of your first response

S – Stop to think before responding

A – Answer in a positive way

In short, Martin sought to declutter his practice in the Tyneside free improvisation scene, by providing a space free from loud, chaotic or unconsidered elements. By removing unnecessary colour and noise, it provides a more inclusive atmosphere that embraces co-operative aesthetics. Bachelor, and obviously Shunyata, emphasise that the result must always be a failure to remain true to aesthetics, but the whole point is to fail better. I learned this for myself by taking part in the Shunyata workshop, while Shelley attended Alex Reed’s poetry workshop. My experience was of participating in two improvisations, each of 10 minutes in length, where the point was to adhere to the Shunyata style, where each player should be sensitive to the need to play distinctly and quietly, to display meditative and reflective restraint, offering stretches of emptiness. I thoroughly enjoyed cradling an acoustic guitar and looking to intervene where I could. Everyone in the room similarly responded. Well, apart from the bloke who’d brought his tenor sax and mini Hammond organ, who seemed keen on recreating the greatest hits of Weather Report and didn’t really get the purpose of the day.

After a vegan lunch, we settled down for a performance by Shunyata, with Alex Reed reciting poetry in certain parts. While I was already familiar with the poetry of love and loss Reed composed after his wife’s death, this was the most moving and spiritual I’ve ever heard Shunyata. NofC’s ability to make his accordion breathe like an elderly relative is enough to make you weep with nostalgia. Over the years I’ve seen bands booed off and bottled off, but I’ve never come across a band being drowned out by a snoring punter, but that’s what we had here. Shelley and I saw it through to the end, enjoying the wonderful stringed work and percussive genius of Shunyata at their absolute peak, but it was a gruelling day and I’m not sure if I’d volunteer for a full day’s entertainment again. I also picked up a CD by Craig Scott’s Lobotomy called War is a Racket, that was available for a donation. I’m not sure about the veracity of the title, but the music contained within is a terrible racket that breaks every one of the Shunyata style tips, as well as your windows if you play it loud enough.

There are plenty of opportunities for interested observers to see Shunyata live on Saturday afternoons between 1 and 3 at The Globe, in a series of concerts that will explore the 7 Zen Aesthetic principles throughout 2023. I’ll almost certainly be at football or cricket on all of these dates, but for the interested observer, here are the dates -:

1.    Asymmetry (Not adhering to perfection).  Saturday 14 January. Support: Thomas Dixon   

2.    Non-attachment (Open minded and detached, being without any form completes every form). Saturday 11 March. Support: Tobias Sarra.

3.    Naturalness (Artless in its natural form, without pretence). Saturday 29 April. Support: Molar Crime.

4.    Simplicity (Not complicated or gaudy). Saturday 24 June. Support: Mobius.

5.    Silence (Limitless Silence, the inward-looking Mind). Saturday 9 September.

Support: Richard Scott

6.    Wizened Austerity (Solitary, dignified like an old tree). Saturday 11 November. Support: Paul Taylor

7.    Profound Subtlety (A hidden memory lingering deep inside, limitless implications).

Saturday 9 December. Support: Katie Oswell.

 

The other gig I’ve been to of late was my sometime musical partner Chris’s Christmas performance, as Bartholomew, at the John Marley Centre in Scotswood. This is where Chris has his rehearsal and recording space and a crowd of 8 humans and a dog assembled on Thursday 22 December, for eats, beats and bevvy. Flurries begins proceedings, involving Chris crushing and then tearing pieces of A4 paper. I’m not sure if they were lined or unlined, but it was absolutely delightful to see. Just a shame more of the glitterati of the much vaunted North East no-audience underground couldn’t manage to turn up. I mean, I was even wearing a Stone Island coat, but I was there. Universe features percussion and plaintive trumpet, like a sombre Mariachi. In Like A Lion has elements of mental, headache-inducing free jazz and random harsh beats, as well as more trumpet. It’ll be on his new album, and I can’t wait to hear it.  

Looking into 2023, there’s a TQ live event at the Lit & Phil on 20 January 2023, when Breather, Firas Khnaisser and Culver perform. The Saturday after that sees Chris Bartholomew and Faye McCalman host a Tyneside Improvisers Workshop at Ye Olde Cross pub in Ryton, between 2pm and 4pm, followed by a TQ and NofC curated Auntie Joy event at the Holy Cross Church opposite, when Christian Alderson, Faye McCalman, Sally Pilkington, Sally Pope, Holy Cross Bell Ringers and Tyneside Improvisers provide “secular sounds in a sacred space,” between 4.30 and 7.00. I’m intending to head along to this after Ryton & Crawcrook Albion v Billingham Town.

The other live event I’ve got tickets for is Mogwai at the Sage on Sunday 13 February. I’m really looking forward to this one and managed to plug a lot of holes in my Mogwai collection by getting hold of the triple CD retrospective set Central Belters. Starting with Summer and Helicon, by way of Mogwai Fear Satan, The Sun Smells Too Loud and I’m Jim Morrison I’m Dead, before finishing with the impeccable ear crusher, My Father, My King, it is over 200 minutes of brutal brilliance. Really can’t wait to see them again.

I’ve never seen Essential Logic live and I wonder if I ever will. Currently I’m content enough with the release of their first album in 43 years, Land of Kali, that is a tremendous pot-boiling stew of dub, white Rasta skank, late 70s electronica and indie funk. You could be on Ladbroke Grove in the early days of the counter culture’s opposition to Thatcher. It’s a marvellous, happy album, where Lora’s seemingly unbroken Krishna belief system doesn’t grate too much. I really prefer how her music has developed compared to William Bennett’s. It’s wonderful to have her back.

And that’s it. All the best for 2023 everyone. I’m hoping to release some music and publish some words myself. Exciting huh?