Ever since Homegame, I've struggled to find a purpose for some things. Work in particular has suffered - the pointlessness and the lack of progress suddenly foregrounded, and my part in the whole process left exposed by a bunch of colleagues who are downright suspicious of my political motives. So I found this morning's trip approaching at alarming speed, with little or no planning. I'd booked some tickets to London because it had been a while since I'd wandered around up there. The original plan had been to give the Oyster Card some exercise and flit about the place, but I was anxious, irritable and distracted and decided that instead, some wandering away from the crowds might be necessary.
And so, after a pleasantly distracting journey to Paddington I found myself on a bus heading for the City. It was quiet, still just before 9:00am and the streets were only just beginning to fill with the bleary eyed tourists in the West End. As the bus filled and emptied I wondered about where to head. A coffee shop on New Bridge Street, remembered from almost a decade ago beckoned. I hopped off at an almost abandoned Ludgate Circus and made my way to the shop. A pleasant enough time was had thinking, writing and drinking coffee while I also planned my next move. The plan was that I didn't have one. I'd looked at all sorts of means of getting east, into the contested, slightly disconcerting areas which reflected my mood. Not finding a direct enough means, I set out walking east. I picnicked in Trinity Gardens, watching the groups of tourists following their professionally patient guides, occasionally straying off-piste to get their photograph taken leaping around inappropriately in a memorial to the war dead. I hid my disgust along with my empty Tesco bag and headed further east, over The Minories and into Cable Street. It had been a while since I'd been this way, and whilst little changed in some senses, I could feel an edge to the stares of the Asian men running car repair businesses as I headed by St. George in the East and pressed on. Huge drops of rain were falling now, and only the shadow footprint of the huge concrete housing blocks was providing any sort of shelter now.
At Shadwell I headed underground, using the spacious new entrance hall to the East London Line. Below it was cool and still, the tight platforms close to the tunnel mouth. I didn't have to wait long for a northbound train, and decided to head for Canonbury and thence to Stratford. It was interesting to see how the new link at Dalston Junction was now just assumed as part of the network - like it had always been there. Londoners adapt to their transport network quickly it seems. At Stratford, the chaos of the busy station contrasted oddly with the stillness of the building site. The hulk of Westfield almost finished, and the Olympic Park a little too far away to be heard. An entrance from the underpass has opened up to the new shopping centre but isn't yet used - soon it will be the busiest way in or out of the station no doubt. How long before this line, linking Shepherd's Bush and Stratford becomes sponsored? The Westfield Line has a certain privatised ring to it. Against my usual instinct I exited the station into the morass of people milling in the forecourt. People pressed flyers into my hand - clubs, jeans for sale, god - all the usual stuff. I struggled over to the bus station and negotiated a knot of PCSOs who seemed to be setting up an unofficial roadblock, to reach my stop.
My plan from here had firmed up in my mind, but the practicalities were still a little unresolved. A bus to Barking would avoid all sorts of doubling back and complications, and would get me lined up to do the GOBLIN route, cruelly curtailed by failed trains on the last attempt. The bus seethed with people, arcing between Stratford and Barking via East Ham, with seemingly endless streets of victorian terraces in between. It was good to see this zone - and it fitted an observation I'd made earlier about the Tube Map. On the map, Harry Beck compressed geography to fit - so areas with lots of stations are expanded to show clarity, while long empty stretches are condensed into mere inches of blankness. I figured we do the same with out mental maps of cities. The journey I was taking now was just such a blank zone - but by doing this bus journey I was expanding it into it's real proportions. My thoughts were disturbed by arrival in Barking town centre. A mess of traffic islands and confusion, which we negotiated until the station appeared. As I stepped off the bus, thick blobs of summer rain began to fall. I dashed downstairs onto a waiting Gospel Oak train, settling into it's pleasantly air-conditioned cocoon.
A swift run over the rooftops brought me to hot and humid Gospel Oak. I changed here for a hop to Willesden Junction, then a slow trundle north to Harrow and Wealdstone. It's an oft repeated journey which gets me back into Central London via a route I love. I pass much of railway interest, and always seem to note new things. This time, I wandered in Harrow a little, finding a plaque to commemorate where Pete Townsend first smashed his guitar when The Who played the railway hotel in 1964. The unofficial rock'n'roll tour continued later when, hopping off the bus at Edgware Road to walk to Paddington, I discovered "The Joe Strummer Underpass". It's these trivial but surprising finds which make these trips so interesting. I walked back to Paddington via a detour into the privatised space around the Grand Union Canal basin. I'd been reading Anna Minton's "Ground Control" and it was all making an eerie, worrying kind of sense. I defiantly took some pictures of a curious tubular bridge before wandering back to the station in a tremendous summer shower. As everyone rushed for cover or fumbled with brollies, I enjoyed the cool shock of rain on my back. It had been a strange day of tiny discoveries.
I realise I'm a bit late to this particular party, partly because while I might be listening repeatedly to something, I don't always feel I've got the audacity to write about it. Indeed it's unusual that I cover two releases by an artist in quick succession - because I figure that anyone who reads this with any regularity will probably get pretty bored with my enthusiasm rather quickly! However, this album has bucked the trend somewhat - partly because it's so impossible to pin down on a quick listen or two, and certainly because it's often so different to the EP I recently wrote about. To recap on the basic premise - King Post Kitsch is Charlie Ward, a producer, multi-instrumentalist and songwriter of not inconsiderable talent. Oddly, given the man's day job there is a conscious effort not to over-produce the music on this album - songs are left to fuzz out into sudden and inconclusive endings, and the hisses and crackles of real instruments and snatches of studio conversation fill the few moments of silence here. Wrapped in a cover which could be grisly urban reportage, or might just be someone searching for a lost pound coin - this varied and intriguing debut is just as hard to pin down at first.
After the opening stomp through "Portland St. Pt.2" and the fuzzy anthem which fronted the recent "Don't Touch My Fucking Honeytone" EP have been despatched, "The Werewolf Hop" starts with a sinister near-whisper before evolving into a swaggering, cranky horror film soundtrack, and ends with cheeky stabs of organ and loping, simian bass playing. In between it's joyous and fairly absurd at times, but it's also huge fun to listen to - and likely for the artist to play too. Buried somewhere in here is the manifesto for the entire record - "I don't need a reason/it just makes me happy" - which signals the inclusion of such a bewildering array of influences and reference points that recording them here would be futile. People tend to recommend that I listen to things they perceive as 'folky sounding stuff' which has always amused me given the breadth of my tastes and my allergy to a fair amount of folk music, but oddly it was this route that initially led me to King Post Kitsch. It took me a little while to figure out some of the earlier work I heard because it didn't fit the description at all, but here the more introspective, acoustic side of Charlie's output is reflected too - not least in "The New Gang" which is indeed gentle, glockenspiel propelled folk with nimble guitar picking and high, dreamy vocals. Also in this vein is the next single from the record "Fante's Last Stand", which is delicate and fragile - initially a world away from the fuzzy, scuzzy depths that King Post Kitsch sink to elsewhere on the album - but even this succumbs to a glorious squall of noise and filth towards the end.
There are probably never going to be enough songs about urban paranoia, but "Walking on Eggshells" is going to be a contender for one of the finest. An air of carefree, swinging 1960's London permeates the song with it's "ba-ba-ba" chorus and joyously heavy-handed Dave Clarke Five drumming. But the sinister lyric is buried in such unashamed guitar pop that it's not immediately evident quite how tense the mood of the song becomes. Perhaps to temper this edge there is room for some sparkly, nervy indie pop next in the form of "You Talk Too Much". It's chugging guitars and soaring choruses could be regarded as fairly conservative by the rest of the album's standards, but even this manages to surprise and confound, with a garage band guitar solo tucked somewhere inside just to keep us on our toes. The whole track bursts with enough enthusiasm and drive to fill an entire album of a lesser artist's material. Surprisingly quickly, things draw to a close with the melancholy organ throb of "Closing Time" which seems to be a tale of the last moments of drinking-up time in a bar - and somewhere here I begin to realise just how many ideas have been road-tested in this fairly concise album, and just how many of them have landed pretty much as intended. That's no mean feat at all.
King Post Kitsch had a life before being snapped up by Song, By Toad Records and that is reflected here in a number of tracks which have appeared on download-only EP releases previously. However, despite the patchwork of styles and tempos and the stitching together of new with older material, this forms a remarkably coherent and hugely satisfying album. The high points for me occur when King Post Kitsch heads full tilt into a fuzz of noise which hides a nugget of neatly concealed pop joy. There are countless moments like this - and for that reason alone this album is a compelling listen.
You can get hold of "The Party's Over" on CD from Song, By Toad, or as a digital download from iTunes or Amazon.
King Post Kitsch - You Talk Too Much
As is often the case with new music, my first listen to this long awaited album is on a train. This time though, despite the threat of summer arriving earlier in the week, I'm travelling under brooding, leaden skies. It's a bitter morning in more ways than one, and somehow once again the right music finds me just when I need it. In this case music that is capable of indulging my glowering bad temper, but also of lifting the spirits and inspiring action. Song Of Return are assembled from a fairly high quality kit of parts - based initially around the feted but now defunct electro outfit Union Of Knives, members of several other notable acts feature including perhaps surprisingly Louis Abbott of Admiral Fallow. This range of talent makes "Limits" a varied, ambitious and ultimately dazzling collection of music which explores both highs and lows
I'm struck initially by "Shackles" which I remember from a demo which has been knocking around on my iPod for a while. It occurred to me back then that it was almost perfect - and that any band that had recorded demos which sounded this complete was going to be pretty special. Sensibly, little has changed here - an aching, sweeping vocal is supported by guitar riffs which pile onto each other, ratcheting up the levels of noise further and further until things finally soar impossibly. It's an expansive, breathtaking piece of work, which showcases Song Of Return's ability to build music in a theatrical sense - providing a backdrop, setting a stage and then finally letting the action begin. This approach, whilst well-tested by a host of acts around currently, never gets tired in this case because Song Of Return do it incredibly well - without fuss, pomp or self-importance in any sense.
Next, there is a jagged electronic pulse at the core of "Concentric" - it's a stuttering, nagging song, with a wall of noise slipping in and out of focus which has a strangely orchestral quality. Joined by what sounds like a choir of children, the main vocal is edged into the background, leaving the wash of noise and disembodied voices to push the song to it's quiet, electronic ending. Biology was always my least favourite subject at school, and initially the title of "Story of a Cell" makes me think of interminable afternoons watching a Science teacher being ritually humiliated by a class pointing at pictures of the human reproductive system. However as "Concentric" quietly ebbs into the dirty, distorted bassline which slinks through this track, the cry "if I am singular how can I rebel?" strikes a chord. It's all working towards a chorus buried in duelling squealing guitars while the vocal insists 'you choose to let your ship go under now' as the song disintegrates, with practically only the drums remaining.
"One Million Hertz" opens via a gentler, understated entrance with a low murmured voice which intones an apocalyptic but weirdly optimistic lyric. The music is little more than a distant drone, except for a repeated piano refrain and sweeps of distant guitar. As the vocals soar, the composition starts to disassemble until there is little more than the voices remaining until "Anniversary" arrives via low, melancholy piano melodies, with a wash of guitar noise and distant distorted vocals. The urgency increases and echoing beats enter the growing maelstrom, but unusually it's the deep, darkening piano which heralds the explosion and not the all-too-easy big guitar ending this time. But when it lands, it's utterly massive as the bass performs somersaults beneath everything. Listening to this on headphones is a staggering, draining and emotional experience. But the album reaches its pinnacle for me on "Trajectory". Starting with a drone of organ and a desperate and insistent vocal, it builds through layers of throbbing bass and pulsing drums until it reaches a point where it's capable of spinning off with its own momentum. The first time I listened to it, again on a train but under sunnier skies this time, it all clicked strangely into place with its refrain of "I'm on a course/and the track is set/and it's leading me way out of my depth". I'm not sure how sensible it is making life-changing decisions based on the chance hearing of music at just the right moment - no doubt I'll write here and let you know how that pans out...
In a year of impressive and inventive records, "Limits" already stands out as something very special - cinematic and ambitious like few albums of this nature, sometimes punishingly loud, but also often dark and oblique - this album is open to endless re-interpretation. Capable of seismic noise alongside lighter, more delicate touches Song Of Return have stumbled across a formula which has eluded a whole slew of acts which have gone before. While the music of a lot of bands which attempt to produce wide-angle, epic and expansive rock gets misappropriated to clumsily soundtrack 'goal of the month', it's going to be tricky to do this with something as layered, intelligent and occasionally brutal as this.
Both physical CD copies and downloads of "Limits" are available at Bandcamp. You can also find it on iTunes.
Song Of Return - Shackles
My relationship with the West Somerset Railway is a troubled one. Despite it being my local preservation group, and a fairly successful one at that - I've not got along with the way it's run lately. My obvious beef is that Diesel doesn't get a look in very often on the WSR, and when it does it plays second fiddle. This is despite a fairly ambitious group based at Williton who do a fine job, only to see their charges rusting unused for a great deal of the time. Add to this the slavish drive for authenticity which seems to effectively bar anything in Rail Blue and certainly most things English Electric in origin, and I suppose we're just not going to agree. So, today was the first time I've been to the West Somerset in it's own right for nearly six years. In the interim I've attended a couple of beer festivals and the odd family event with my nephews, but in terms of spending my hard earned cash on the railway, it's been a long while. The occasion was their "Mixed Traffic Weekend". It's a mealy-mouthed attempt to hide the diesel gala from the turn-up-and-go punters who want steam. I'm not sure why they do this because at several points today I was asked by clearly disgruntled normals "What does Mixed Traffic mean then?". Notably the Severn Valley and South Devon railways throw a steam diagram into their timetable for normals, which is mostly understood and tolerated by the cranks - so this policy feels a bit strange on the WSR's part.
Another attraction of this weekend's event was the special shuttle service operated by First Great Western. I've covered the track a couple of times before - not least the first time it was used after reopening, but the idea of an easy way to access the gala was appealing. Instead of keeping it simple, I decided to head to Bristol where the first shuttle of the day started. A non-stop run to Taunton, followed by a slow crossing of all of the mainlines before curving onto the branch at Norton Fitzwarren. Arrived at a busy Bishops Lydeard with 59103 and 59001 at the head of a train on the opposite platform, ready to depart with a curious ensemble of horns and bells attached to the front!
Shrewd organisation meant that you had to be here practically every day of the weekend to cover all the locomotives, especially the 59s. However, it was the line's own hydraulics which seemed to be drawing the crowds - with a few rather uncalled for exchanges from people who felt the modern engines should be here. Frustrating really, as it seems it's novelties like this which draw in the breadth of enthusiasts, and these events would simply not run just on specific niche groups turning out. Having said that, after a double-back to Lydeard using D1661 - a renumbered and repainted shade of the former 'North Star', we had a run with D832 which was running in all-over grey primer.
After a bite to eat in Minehead, and with the rain mostly holding off, we managed a couple of quick switchbacks via Blue Anchor - rather like at the 2005 gala in fact. This meant a couple of journeys behind Hymek D7017, before picking up 59001 and 59103 for the long trek back to Bishops Lydeard. Along the way we passed the Western, having failed on an earlier run being pulled into Williton. However, despite this setback things seemed to be running to time - and as we arrived to catch the last shuttle back to Taunton, D7523 was dropping on to the stock to make the run back in lieu of the Western.
Given it was a pleasant night, and because I wanted to ponder a little, I decided to do the final shuttle all the way back to Bristol again non-stop. Time for a coffee in the late evening sun before catching a train back home, retracing my steps. When this turned up at Temple Meads, I noted it was the curious and mysterious hybrid unit 153399 - made up of half of the fire-damaged 150221 and a stray Class 153, and so number to avoid it being sent where these single-car units aren't allowed to go. It had been a pleasant day of decent engines, good beer and fairly fine weather. Sometimes you don't have to travel miles to find these things...
Lost::MikeGTN
I've had a home on the web for more years than I care to remember, and a few kind souls persuade me it's worth persisting with keeping it updated. This current incarnation of the site is centred around the blog posts which began back in 1999 as 'the daylog' and continued through my travels and tribulations during the following years.
I don't get out and about nearly as much these days, but I do try to record significant events and trips for posterity. You may also have arrived here by following the trail to my former music blog Songs Heard On Fast Trains. That content is preserved here too.
