Monday 14 May 2018

Reuben

For my friends ... you know who you are, specially since some of you were there.



Reuben

Yesterday upon the stair 
I met a man who wasn’t there.
He turned up later at the show
So far out he didn’t know
We’d met before.
Hard and rude to just ignore
I listened through the spit and sparks
As he declaimed once more that Marx
Would be two hundred had he lived.

Hippy, boho, pagan, punk?
Was he like me or simply drunk?
“I’ve been stoned these thirty days,”
He declaimed through purpled haze
Emphasised through thrashing gesture
Splashing ale in my direction.

I hoped he’d find another friend.
Instead he grabbed me by the hand
And led me through the throng.
The band could only struggle through their set
As every thought he spoke out loud
In front of the assembled crowd.

He chivvied, “Have you seen the world?
South America? Africa? China?
Nepal? India? Asia Minor?
I’m seventy-seven, seen the lot.
Though some would claim I lost the plot
At least once I held it in my hand.
Have you been far beyond this land?

Do you write?” He asked and said,
“May I recite?”
Threw back his head 
And howled some sounds into the air;
A thin and baying song so rare
I’d never heard the like before.
He carried on declaring more a feeling than a meaning
And concluded with a drunken smile.

Throughout the recitation
Mildly panicked situation
I scanned to seek the aid of friends
And in the end two came to my assistance.

They moved their chairs and made some space
I took my leave and left in haste
Abandoned him to speak to others.

No umbrage given and none taken
At being suddenly forsaken
A new idea took hold at once
And he exhorted all, “Let’s dance!”



Marshlander 5th May 2018

Sunday 13 May 2018

Of Sonic Warfare, Pink Smoke and Fairies

After breakfast on Friday, the day of my hour-long set for the festival I went off to seek Elric of the Dagda, who had seen me through the gate late the previous evening. The Dagda seem to be the security agency of choice these days at Pagan events. Elric had suggested I return in the morning to secure my wristband for the weekend. I found him and he made the necessary introductions to the committee member looking after the box office and with whom I registered my presence. Once strapped into my adhesive wristband (a fetching gold one labelled "Crew & Entertainment") I set off to chat to the music organiser.

Events for Friday
The M.O. was in the music tent and affably introduced me to SoundMan, who apparently had only been on the site long enough to unload the speakers, amps, desk and outboard, but nothing was plugged in or strapped down. "Come back at 3," he said. So I did.

In the meantime though, I went back to Camp Marsh for more personal rehearsal and warm-up, wandered round the site greeting old friends and making new ones. Chatting to stall holders who were getting ready for an expected inrush of the hoards, everyone had a tale to tell of the waterlogged swamp that was the site after heavy rain earlier in the week and every single stall holder had got stuck in the marsh when arriving to set up. Arriving the night before in the dark it looks like I actually got off very lightly as I drove round the whole site looking for "my" chosen spot. New arrivals continued to get stuck in their vehicles throughout the festival even after three days of hot sun and the often accompanying fierce wind blowing off the North Sea. On the final day an AA truck arrived in response to a distress call from a member and also became embedded in the marsh. The festival couldn't have been more aptly named, even if this time, perhaps a first in the collective memories of returning punters and long-time organisers, the weather was mostly very hot and sunny.

I watched Vic prepare the Beltane bonfire, destined to be lit with due ceremony an hour before my set and which was, in the spirit of Beltane, to be kept alight for the duration of the festival over the extended weekend. Every time I saw him I had to resist asking, "Is Vic There?" It was difficult. Most of the wood for the fire that was stacked up at the edge of the arena was in the form of old pallets. I couldn't see Vic getting much sleep if he had to look after a fire that was going to burn very quickly. In addition to the blistering sun, there was the stiff breeze to contend with and the fire was going to need lots of feeding once it got going. However, before the ceremony, it was a beautifully arranged pyramid of branches and twigs with sprigs of greenery and floral contributions around the base. What we didn't know at the time was that there was also a surprise ingredient that would produce a mass of pink smoke after a few minutes. Nice touch.

The main marquee and sound stage

Arriving for my soundcheck, there was still rather more setting up of equipment being done than one might have expected after six hours prep time. There were also gremlins in the signal chain. In the end my 3pm soundcheck was conducted just as I was due to go on at 5 o'clock. Although there were more speakers and amps than I use, even with my six-piece band on a village green, the set up didn't look massively more complicated than my own. It seems though that the equipment problems were difficult to trace and with appropriate fortitude, courage, panic and (I suspect) embarrassment and irritation SoundMan continued tracing them much of the way through my set. Unfortunately one outcome of his dedication was that I had no idea from which of the six monitors surrounding me I would be receiving the next blast of sound which took a variety of forms including me, any combination of the noises I was creating (except my snare drum which seemed totally absent from any cocktail), complete silence, a blast of ear-destroying feedback or a level of hiss one might expect from a generously large knot of snakes. As a wearer of hearing aids I had no idea what I was hearing and how much was my own internal squealing. Of course, the silences between the blasts were doubly confusing when I could not hear some of what I was playing and had no idea how much I was over (or under) compensating. Prima donna that I am I was worried about trying to pick the strings too hard and tearing a nail on thumb or fingers. I could pick up a hint of my kick drum from the sound issuing from the front of house speaker arrays, but my guitar and snare drum were sucked into the air long before I could hear them. That was unnerving, specially the more so because when practising at Camp Marsh with no amplification whatever I was perfectly well-balanced ... albeit admittedly only as far as the sound was concerned. The whole experience took me back to being a seventeen year-old opening for the Pink Fairies in a reverberant municipal drill hall. In a spirit of loving awareness, solidarity and cooperation I had agreed to play, severe vertigo notwithstanding, from a narrow balcony halfway along and up (very much up) a side wall between the floor and a very high arched roof in order that the crew could set about their business of preparing the stage. After working on my playing and writing for a couple of years and having plucked up the courage to begin to sing at folk club floor spots it was an honour I took very seriously being asked to open for such a popular band. That memorable evening in 1972 proved to be the end of my attempts to perform as a solo singer/guitarist/songwriter in any forum for the next thirty or forty years. Had I realised that setting up the (at the time) loudest band in the land involved a drum tech nailing Russell Hunter's kit to the stage during my set I may have been less cooperative about performing halfway up a wall with only a couple of microphones and very long leads daisy-chained into a domestic hi-fi more used (and thoroughly inadequate at that) for providing what we used to refer to as "sounds" before, between and after the live performances. I wouldn't have needed much of the stage for just me and my acoustic guitar and crew might have realised someone was trying to sing. At least the guerrilla percussionista later apologised, "Sorry mate, I thought it was a record playing," which could have been taken as a compliment of sorts I suppose.

Since, as the first act on, and with the majority of people on site yet to twig that any entertainment in the music marquee had begun, the audience could be totalled in spectacularly modest numbers. Most of the listening audience present were friends, friends of friends and their miscellaneously related family members anyway. A few songs into the set I asked SoundMan to stop putting me through the P.A. altogether. I announced to the audience that anyone who wanted to hear the rest of the performance would be welcome to bring their chairs to the front of the stage (the plan being to continue without any further assistance from electrically operated equipment). In those milliseconds of thought I also considered taking myself to the audience rather than making them move towards me, but I had already tried out a few seats in the auditorium and had already experienced the joy of gently sinking into the marsh. Putting myself at risk of such further distraction was plainly daft, so the audience kindly came to me. I think the same number were still above ground by the end of the set. Naturally enough I was berating myself for behaving like a prima donna, but playing three instruments simultaneously whilst remembering the strings of lyrics and chord changes with which I challenge myself requires at least a minimal degree of concentration. Unfortunately I was failing to attain anything close to such a level of focus. I had a bit of an insight into how Manuel Noriega may have felt being confronted by Delta Force during his days of sanctuary within the Nunciature of The Holy See as his final days in Panama drew to a close. For the record I have no ambition to become either a military dictator or a soldier in an invading army.

People were very kind about my performance. I suspect Words may have been had elsewhere. Over the next few days I compensated by treating friends and victims to guerrilla performances of my own, which turned out to be very intimate and rather less fraught affairs - much closer to the living room performances I would like to undertake once I finish recording the new album. Some of these were thank yous in exchange for bartered services, like for Amy who showed me how to make a dreamcatcher, braided my hair and treated me to a couple of baby dreads.


Photograph by Helen Cragg
Marshlander plays for a little gathering at Amy's stall in the main arena.

Friday 4 May 2018

Of Masked Men, Woodwork And The First Festival Of The Year

Not quite nine o’clock in the morning and Ive been up for three hours. The sun is shining and if it stays like this, today will be hot. I’m in a boggy field near the Lincolnshire coast for this weekend’s Spirit of the Marsh Beltane celebration. Ive been to this festival a couple of times before, but only for half a day at a time. It always coincides with other work. This time it is work.

On the basis that it’s not what you know I contacted one of the organisers, a friend I met through an internet discussion group, and suggested to him that Marshlander would be appropriate entertainment for a festival called “Spirit of the Marsh”. As the keyboard player quipped, “It’s got your name all over it!” I arrived last night, at about eleven o’clock. I decided not to use my phone app to find the place. I went organic. I knew it was in Trustthorpe, which itself is somewhere near Mablethorpe. I knew that Mablethorpe could be reached by first finding the A16. I knew I had a choice of routes to reach the A16. Somehow it worked. More amazing than that I did not feel tired on the two-hour trip.  

For many decades long drives, specially evening ones, have made me feel very weary. Perhaps it is because I have not slept properly for many years that I have found driving soporific. Driving has always involved keeping very aware of my state of alertness and stopping to sleep if I feel potentially dangerous to other drivers. I’ve had mixed messages about this. I always felt that I was being polite by not killing other road users. I have been stopped by the police many times after working at night. After a gig and all the packing up and some obligatory post-performance cameraderie, I’m quite keen to get home to bed. Being stopped because I drive a van is irritating, but they are only doing their job ... I keep telling myself. Perhaps the police get bored or lonely. Perhaps I’m part of a game they play. One might have thought that in a country that outdoes pretty much everywhere else in the degree to which it watches and records the activities of its citizens there would be a record of van registrations where the owner is known to be a gigging musician. I should get Cambridge Analytica on to it. After all, it was coming back home from Cambridge one time in the wee hours that I was pulled by the police after I’d found a safe layby to catch a bit of a sleep. If I’m on the road it would seem I’m suspicious because I’m driving a van, specially a white one apparently (but then black vans were the troublesome ones when I owned one of those). Unfortunately, when I’m being cautious and pull off the road for a nap, I’m still suspicious. 

Where’s this leading? Earlier this year I was diagnosed with OSAS - obstructive sleep apnea syndrome. For years P has told me that he has woken in the night and felt he needed to give me a nudge to see if I were still alive. He has caught me not breathing many times. I don't not-breathe on purpose, but I didn't do anything about it until I finally felt so exhausted I went to see the GP to help me get to the bottom of it. I was convinced that it was the tinnitus roaring in my head that woke me several times a night. My lovely GP admitted we needed specialist advice on counts of both the exhaustion and the tinnitus, and I left his consulting room within five minutes of entering with hospital appointments at two different hospitals. The appointments were to take place within a fortnight. This is the NHS at its very best!

The first appointment brought me to the attention of an audiologist who diagnosed moderate hearing loss over 2kHz. This was, as it happens, a bit of a shock. I had been under the impression that I could hear okay up to about 6kHz, and hopefully more. The tinnitus is my brain making up for what it can’t hear, so hearing aids were prescribed. They have made a huge difference. I still have the tinnitus, but it is nowhere near as disruptive as it was. Taking them out at night leaves room for the noises to come whooshing back.  The second appontment, at a sleep clinic, has resulted in me being diagnosed with "a chronic disorder of his breathing for which he requires treatment every night with a CPAP machine through a face mask" - a declaration I have to carry with me when I pass through security at airports and railway stations. Once again, the CPAP (continuous positive airway pressure) device is a life-changing experience. Bits of my life have started to return, most gratifying when I thought some of those bits were gone forever. From an AHI of nearly 15.9 (ie 16 breathing stoppages every hour when entering deep sleep) my last reading was 6.3. I have not exactly been waking up completely refreshed, but it is wonderful not feeling completely drained. I am now, though, a man in a mask. I am plugged, via a corrugated hose and a mask that covers my nose and mouth, into the machine which forces filtered air into my nose and keeps me breathing at night. It is a bit of a rigmarole, but there are benefits to be had.  There are also challenges. Using a CPAP machine does require electricity. Here I am in the middle of a field with no mains power so I have had to find a means of powering my device off-grid. For the past few nights I have drawn power from deep-cycle leisure batteries in the boat via a (very expensive) DC-DC kit designed for the machine. This was a trial for when sleeping in the van. Now all I need is a means of recharging the batteries. Undoubtedly more of this later. 

View from Camp Marsh before the crowds arrive.

Camp Marsh

Woodwork, it's something I never had a chance to do a school. Other boys did, but I was one of those who had to do Latin instead. I didn't get very far with Latin (show me a teenaged boy who hasn't sniggered at an ablative or genitive case) although I suppose I have found what I managed to understand quite useful on occasions. Knowing something about wood and its workings, though, would have come in so handy so many times. When I left school I went to work for a firm of builders in London. My lack of knowledge was ripe for humorous episodes amongst the "blokes". I ended up driving the firm's flatbed Transit truck, keeping the tradesmen supplied with the bits they needed to bring in the money and clearing away the mess after they had finished. My first trip to the timber yard prompted an embarrassment I shall probably never forget. I had to buy some 8'x4' sheets of blockboard. As I was waiting to be served I had seen men carrying piles of timber and several sheets of various boards to their vehicles. Asked if I needed any help I assured the man in the yard I'd manage. I approached the stack of boards leaning against the racking ready for me to carry to the truck. I stretched my arms wide and clutched the outermost board as I attempted to get the balance right. I over-compensated and the first board nearly turned me into Flat Stanley. I simply could not lift a single board off the ground and ended up having to go back and ask for help. Within a fortnight though I had a technique of sorts and the next visit was not quite so embarrassing ... apart from the ribbing I got in the yard.

I didn't know anything about joinery, but my first job in every house I lived in was to put up some shelves. I developed an idiosyncratic shelving style which was pretty bomb proof and held my huge collection of books and vinyl. Whenever I have lived in the van for a few days I have used a camp bed in the back. It has never been very comfortable, or particularly warm on colder nights, and it has used up precious floor space. I decided that for Spirit of the Marsh I would attempt to emulate some of my nomadic friends and erect a sleeping shelf upon which I could lay a proper mattress, although this time an airbed would have to suffice. On the morning I was due to leave for the festival (i.e. yesterday) I went to the timber yard in the neighbouring village and bought some wood that would enable me to knock something together according to a plan I scribbled on the back of a bank statement envelope the previous evening. I got back to the farm. I measured everything twice and nearly got it right. I had to cut some bits out of some of the lengths to make joints that wouldn't twist and it took me a while to get my head round where and how much to cut. I even had to shape some cross-pieces that I planned to lay across the panelled-in wheel arches, because the sides of my van converge from the rear awards the sliding doors. Amazingly everything fits, more or less, apart from a frame for the foot end of the ply board bed support. I bodged that up by blocking it up with some of the wood I'd cut to make the frame; job done! It may make a chippy blush, but it's my own work and I had the best night's sleep I'd ever had in the van. I shall consider my sleeping shelf a work in progress, a bit like the leisure battery recharging operation, but I'm very happy with the results so far.

The gates don't open for festival business for another three hours, so, when I arrived last night, I had a pick of places to set up. Some of the going seemed a little soft, but I found my place and backed the van into it. I decided I would erect my shelter and "kitchen" in the dark. This also turned out better than the first time I tried to erect the shelter when I was still trying to work it out after the light had faded and it became very dark a couple of years ago. This time I was all set up in under an hour and in bed by midnight, CPAP hissing gently beside me.