Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.2, Part…er..1

As you will know if you’ve been following this blog- or even stumbled across it during an extended period of office-based web browsing, self-righteously justified by the not unreasonable assumption that there’s probably not a single office worker in the country who’s actually doing anything that could even reasonably be construed as work this week- my new album “Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.2” has been posted online prior to its release in the New Year. So, assuming you have already adopted the slightly furtive and awkward desk-bound posture required to illicitly surf the internet whilst simultaneously creating the impression that you are engaged in the kind of meaningful activity for which you are actually paid, why not take the deceit one stage further, pop one of your earphones into the ear that doesn’t face everyone else in the office, and give yourself a moment or two to listen to the tracks below. 

The tracks that make up “Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.2” have been completed over the last eighteen months, and represent nine different journeys and destinations of an imagined journey through the outlying countries of the Mediterranean. All the tracks are based on places that I’ve visited over the last 15 years- with the exception of “Isis in Tunis”, whose origins I will explain later in another post- and have been extrapolated into one long, continuous journey, beginning where “Train Tracks and Travelogues Vol.1” left off in Venice, and continuing by rail and sea to North Africa, Portugal Spain and France.

In the build-up to its release, I will be posting more details behind the choice and significance of the different destinations referenced on the album, but in the meantime if you have any personal connection or experiences with the places mentioned you can post a photo reply onto this site- the best ones will be considered for the album artwork which is currently being designed by Joe Mateo.

The album will be released as a download and CD in January 2012- enjoy previewing it by the links below, and if you have any feedback please leave your comments on the Soundcloud site www.soundcloud.com/daiwatts 

December 21, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Campervan Summer Part 1

The Campervan has seen a ridiculous amount of action this summer, and I think it’s safe to say there aren’t many of Britain’s longest motorways that haven’t had the pleasure of our company over the last few weeks. It’s a salutary lesson for next year that whilst the open road is all very well in principle, the reality of long hours on it is finding yourself wishing you’d been a little less ambitious with your itinerary. Which is why it was such a good idea to do a dry-run in the UK first; as demoralising as it is at realising you’re still several million hours away from Inverness- Inverness!-and that the miles are not so much being eaten up by the van as being toyed with on the plate before a half-hearted attempt to consume them mouthful by agonising mouthful, at least we’re not experiencing the error of our ways in a soon-to-be-bankrupt European country where the destination itself is fraught with the unknown and people are rioting on the streets in protest at the financial strictures placed on them by an unloved Governement who…….oh.

The Campervan was commendably reliable in delivering us to our various destinations, and obviously can’t be blamed for deciding to make the average journey time between locations around seven hours. Next year, more louche campfire activities, less panic-bought Burger Kings from Newport Pagnell services. Scotland was- you might want to sit down for this- quite wet, but there were some sunny spells, and even- gasp!- a barbecue at one point. (Thanks Mum and D.)The Lakes are always beautiful, with Low Wray campsite a real find. Interesting mix of the kind of family who probably wrote the review of it on the Guardian website- i-Phones lovingly tucked into the cup-holders of their collapsible camping chairs as they admire the twinkling lights of Ambleside across the water, Tabitha and Placenta drawing crayon pictures by the light of their head torches on an oak-tree stump nearby- and a slightly more robust style of adventurer, otherwise identified as the Northern lad, seen going for a midnight swim in the icy shallows of Windermere, clearly both determinedly pissed and determinedly ‘up-for-it’.

There was then the welcome diversion of cricket at Hinton Charterhouse, an annual match between the locals and the ‘luvvies’, which seems to have morphed in definition from someone who actually is an actor, or perhaps musician, to someone who once knew one, or more prosaically doesn’t actually live in Hinton Charterhouse. The locals, as always, somehow contrived to beat us without looking as if they were actually trying, or even intended, to win, before we repaired to the Stag to play a non-stop three hour gig. The Professionals by name, pissed chancers by nature. (Thought I’d covered ‘The Professionals’ incident, but realised I haven’t. Basically, the name given to one of our endlessly mutating line-ups for a gig, much to our amusement. Thought it would be fun to play The Professionals theme-tune at the start, before realising we were all actually humming the music to Starsky and Hutch, and couldn’t remember how the Professionals went. The Professionals. So professional, they don’t even know their own theme tune.)

After this, it was on to Wales, and the luxury of a Yurt by a waterfall, whilst the boys were upgraded from their tent to the van. Trips down memory lane are not for the faint-hearted- read Orwell’s ‘Coming up for Air’ if you haven’t already-but our visits to various sites from childhood were all a great success. We got a bespoke tour of Dynefwr castle from Kevin the National trust guide, and I filled him in with some of the missing history of the place from when I lived there, although I left out some of the more colourful detail. Not really sure how he would have been able to use the episode of when one of the more feral children tried to have sex with a Jack Russell in his monologue. Also met with great hospitality at Trewithian House- always nice to be welcomed in when revisiting old homes, and very grateful to the present owner for allowing us to snap away.

The picture below is from the ‘lost’ pools of Randir-mwyn; lost by us, that is, I’m sure everyone in Wales probably knows about them, but it was the first time in 30 years anyone in our family had been back and tried to find them. We were actually due to return to London that morning, but what with it being a perfect summer’s day, we- ahem, I -decided to go up to the remotest reaches of Randir-mwyn to see if we could locate this old childhood favourite. Which we did.

Thank you, God.         

September 6, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Glastonbury Tales

Glastonbury has come and gone, but as an inauguration into the daddy- or is it the mother?-of all festivals, it has to qualify as an outstanding success, in that I am now a complete convert, having previously eyed its muddy charms from afar with something approaching a mix of disdain and fear. 

The Spirit of 71 entourage I was involved in played a large part/were instrumental in/ place-own-music-realted-metaphor-here in the experience being so amenable. Even the attempts by some of the security staff to prevent the band’s access to the site couldn’t dampen the mood. Promoting a certain kind of person to the rank of gate-keeper will always end in tears, as the temptation to deploy their only weapon- “You cant’ come in”- will always be too irresistible for them, and neither logical reasoning nor humane request will deter them in their duty to deny access. More enlightened forces ultimately prevailed, much to the disgust of the brightly-vested Anubis on the gate, and the band was let through.

It seems redundant to talk about mud at Glastonbury, but it is the first time I’ve had to hose my keyboard stand and gig-bag down after a gig, not to mention scraping the stuff of my music- WTF, Glastonbury? The site itself, with the rain coming down relentlessly and the population marching determinedly through it, was like the Somme might have been if everyone had been too pissed and high to fight, and decided to wander aimlessly at each other instead. Having said that, some of the gigs we played went down better on the rain-soaked Friday than they did on the sunny Saturday afternoon, as if some ley-line-related perversity required everyone to disguise their enjoyment in the face of clear skies and warm breezes. Or maybe we were just shit on Saturday.

Against all expectations, rocking out with Melanie on Friday was one of the highlights of the two days; good crowd, band all going for it, past midnight etc.- whatever it was, highly enjoyable, despite having to hang round for ages beforehand backstage whilst she went through some pretty interminable solo stuff, even her manager rolling his eyes at it all. Another undoubted highlight was initially trying to collect my gear on Saturday from the backstage lock-up- which ultimately required a 4×4 to pick it up in the swamp-like conditions- only to be told that 20 Wombles had just arrived on site, and getting them safely delivered to their stage was the top priority. I’d happily let the Wombles’ ability to function as a live band supersede anything I might want to attempt at any given time of any given day, and was only sorry to have missed them play. We did wonder afterwards if they had to restrain their natural inclinations to tidy up the entire site before they could play, and imagined a scenario where having removed every last bit of litter from the surface of Worthy Farm, and poised to rip into “Wombling in the Rain (Makes You Feel So Good)”, someone in the audience might thoughtlessly discard a crisp packet, obliging the band to down instruments and trudge off stage to deal with the offending item.

Arthur Brown did a cracking live show, and said afterwards backstage that he deliberately employed a young band- who were absolutely shit-hot -because they had no pre-conceptions about how things should be done, were consequently very open to everything, and had tremendous energy levels. Amen to that, and long live Mr Brown, who at 69- sixty-fucking-nine!- can still hit a top D on “Fire” and still knows more about how to put on a live show than most of us will ever hope to know.

July 6, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Plus ça change

Afetr George Osborne defended his current economic policies on the radio this morning, it was pointed out that he kept using the word “credibility” when explaining his course of action. What this transaltes as is: “I am trying to establish credibility with the markets that we we are taking the economic problems we face seriously”. What this in turn means is- “I am trying to appease and reassure the very people who got us into this mess, and not frighten them with the prospect that they might never again be able to cock up the entire economy.”

The irritable smirkster also talked of his “mandate” to solve the country’s problems. This is a strange choice of words for a government which finds itself in power only thanks to a bit of flagrant bed-hopping with a political party that is the ideological opposite of themselves. Whatever Clegg might profess about the similarities of the two parties, or however much Call-Me-Dave might extol their willingness to work together, the core supporters of the two parties are, of course, fundamentally different. The Liberal Democrats actually propsed at a party conference some years back to de-criminalise certain drugs. You would be more likely to see Ken Clarke in a Mankini on the sea-front at Brighton than see a Tory politician propose this at Conference. There was no mandate, only an undignified scramble to get into power, following the sorry realisisation that the Conservatives had somhow during the election managed to miss the biggest open goal since Diana Ross skied one over the bar during the opening ceremony of the 1994  World Cup.

There was much talk by the coalition after the election that the country had actually got the “government they voted for”, that somehow people thought when casting their vote that what they were actually doing was skilfully creating a period of political uncertainty which would result in a hung parliament, which in turn would create the dream unification we’d all talked about so much before the election- the utopian, rainbow alliance of Conservatives and Liberals, hangers and floggers joyfully embracing drug-decriminalisers and Guardian readers. This conveniently forgets that people voted Lib-Dem in the election because they seemed to represent change from the the two-party system and were seemingly well-placed to do better than they ever previously had; they also  didn’t turn out in large numbers to vote Conservative because they’d seen what happened last time anybody did. The irony is, the notion that the electorate somehow “voted-in ” the subsequent coalition is exactly the kind of result we would have had under the AV system which Call-Me-David had so whole-heartedly attacked. The AV system would enable exactly the kind of extended choice which the coalition was implying the electorate had made in delivering a hung parliament in 2010 and which it was so keen to acknowledge.

June 6, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

Holier than Thou

Images of frenzied people chanting “USA!USA!” in the States following the death of The World’s Most Bearded Man bear an uncanny resemblance to the scenes of hysterical flag burning so often witnessed in the Middle East, and all too often held up as evidence of the region’s uncivilised populus.

A few days later, in an article in The Guardian, an American girl claimed the shots of jubilant crowds whooping and hollering at Ground Zero were “offensive to me as a Muslim”. Why do people find it so hard to just be offended? Why do we find it so difficult to be  simply offended as human beings?

I went to collect my youngest from school a while ago, and was collared by an anxious parent who informed me that her son and mine had been betting during the after-school club. I was already aware of this, as my son had told me enthusiastically that the other child, having recently discovered the joys of gambling, was prepared to take a bet on the outcome of pretty much any scenario my son- or indeed anyone at the club, kids and staff alike- could come up with. The anxious parent scrutinised me carefully whilst relating the news, then said-“It’s particularly bad for me because ……I’m a Quaker”. 

How awful I felt. Whilst I, as a non-Quaker, was simply grateful if my own child managed to return home each day without having injected crack into his eyeballs, she was going through the extra agony of experiencing the situation with much higher moral standards. In the spirit of her much vaunted values, I guess I should have told her the truth, but I simply didn’t have the heart to tell her that it was her own beloved Quaker-ish offspring that had instigated proceedings. I should, though, at the very least, have told her to put a tenner on him being in serious financial diificulties by the time he left secondary school.

May 12, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »

The Royal Wedding: To see or not to see?

On one level, of course, this is an absolute no-brainer: last bastions of hereditary privilege blowing yet more public money on themselves? No thanks. On the other hand- who could resist a sneaky peak at the service itself, if only to remind ourselves how ridiculous and anachronistic the whole system/family/occasion is? Do we sympathise with the Middleton parents for now being married into an elitist, self-serving clan with a world-class record in snubbing outsiders, or allow ourselves a little snigger at the fact they’ve made their fortune selling party-poppers online? Will Kate’s dad walk up the aisle dressed as a Clown in deference to his chosen profession? One thing that makes me think twice about allowing myself a harmless moment or two of voyeuristic schadenfreude is the worry that seeing “Call Me Dave” dressed in his morning suit might result in mindless and gratuitous violence and the inadvertent destruction of my TV. It does need replacing with a digital one, though; maybe this is the way to do it: indulge in a frenzied orgy of class-hatred and destroy my own property, before searching the internet, bloodied but unbowed, for a suitable upgrade.

Is it class/wealthy envy to be so riled by Dave? The cabinet has 22 members who are multi-millionaires, who must legislate, amongst other things, on the financial future of the poorest people in the country. Does this not feel akin to convening 22 rapists and asking them to determine the best policy for sex education? Despite what seem to be the obvious failings of Dave, I can’t say I hold out much hope for the alternative, particularly having witnessed Ed M address the crowd at the rally in Hyde Park. Wooden doesn’t begin to do his public-speaking style justice; if he ever wanders in to Madame Tussauds he’ll be lucky to ever be let out again.

My brother-in-law runs a craft brewery in Bristol-www.arbor-ales.com- and showed me a pump-clip he’d designed for the occasion: “I Couldn’t Give a Toss (But Thanks For The Day Off!) Ale”. However, on the advice of  landlords in the area, probably won’t be displaying it for the big day; despite the fact it will go down well with a large section of the drinking community, there is an equally large- and usually much more vociferous- section of the “leisure industry” who would be offended. Why do the people with what would seem to be the most reason for despising the social injustice and inequality of the Royal Family invariably turn out to be their biggerst supporters? Answers on a beer mat, please.

I probably will see a bit, in what I hope will be a determinedly post-ironic fashion, but what I fear will be in a spirit of unashamed curiosity. 

April 22, 2011 | Categories: Uncategorized | Leave A Comment »