In Celebration

29 Syawal, 1444

An unexpectedly celebratory end to the month and to Raya. Sadly we've got the twinkling lights on for the last time in a while. Happily Boon & Mei popped round for a tea and a long natter in the afternoon, and this continued into the evening as we got invited to Yati & Nahar's and ate rather more than necessary at their place. A lovely way to complete a highly satisfactory Syawal.

But there's always a bit of darkness even in the brightest light. I was enjoying a good chat with Nadra about her English course at NTU and her thoughts on the writers she enjoyed when she told me the very sad news that my old mate Peter, who taught her at 'A' level, had died recently. She herself was still feeling the shock and grief and the news hit me pretty hard.

I've been thinking since of some of the jolly times we had together and what a source of good cheer and love of life Peter was. It helps.

At The Low End

I've been thinking a lot about bass players lately - both bass guitar and double bass. Not sure why my thoughts have been turning in this direction. I mean I've always had a thing about listening closely to bassists (and trying to play a bit myself) but I've found myself listening with a peculiar intensity to the low end of late. Possibly this was prompted by the reappearance of an interesting thread on bass players over at ProgressiveEars, to which I almost contributed but, probably wisely, decided it was too much trouble to do so.

In this case my contribution would have been to have raised the name of Peter Giles, the bassist on the second Crimso outing, In the Wake of Poseidon - and on the self-titled McDonald and Giles album (that could have been the second Crimson album had things panned out in that direction.) His name is missing from any of the excellent lists in the Bass Players thread, and understandably so. I say this simply because, as far as I know, he just upped and left the music scene circa 1972 and didn't really come back until becoming a key player in the 21st Century Schizoid Band in the first decade of this century.

The thing is that listening to his playing on the Schizoids' Pictures of a City - Live in New York recently I suddenly realised just how perfect he is as a player on all that early material. And then following that with the two earlier albums mentioned above just how perfectly he fits in with his brilliant brother Mike Giles (surely a candidate for the best rock-jazz drummer of the late 60s, early 70s!) Uncannily he both holds the material together in terms of rock solid in-the-pocket rhythm but can go wandering when the space allows. A good example is the titular Pictures of a City from the live album - and, fascinatingly, throughout the full performance following that incendiary starter you'd think that he acquired a new drummer brother in the shape of the mighty (and mightily under-rated) Ian Wallace.

Anyway, all this has left me considering whether I might just embark on a mini-sequence of posts to this Far Place of bass players who have made it to my private pantheon of greats. The problem is that there're just too many.

But one last point in relation to Peter Giles. In the bits and pieces of background stuff I've read on him - much coming from Sid Smith's toxic tome on Crimson - I've formed the impression that he was, and is, a very strong personality with a definite sense of what music-making has meant to him and that stepping away from the professional scene to an 'ordinary' life was far from necessarily a bad thing - for him. Maybe for anyone?

Setting The Bar Low

I hit upon a new approach to self improvement, around about 10.00 am, and feel obliged to share this with the world. As stated (rather pithily I reckon) in my rough notes: I'm working on reducing my level of stupidity.

In a time of feeling a wee bit stretched this strikes me as being within my limits, not to mention my abundant limitations. So, highly satisfactory, no? The only problem lies in the phrase working on since, to be honest, I'm not really working on anything except getting through each day.

A Question Of Balance

Spent the late afternoon & early evening socialising. Now very tired. But happily so.

There's a lot of emphasis in this little nation on achieving a 'work-life balance'. Nobody can actually manage this. But it's fun trying.

Something Close To Genius

Just finished the tenth in the Flashman series and finding myself knocked sideways by the outstanding final segments - essentially the whole sequence on the raid at Harper's Ferry. Exciting, funny, thought-provoking and, most of all, oddly moving. You are made to feel for the deaths of John Brown's 'pet lambs'; indeed, you are made to feel for the entirely, maddeningly, paradoxical Brown himself. Hero and madman. To blame for it all. Even for the dreadful war between North & South?

So strange that I can't recall feeling any of this when I first read the novel some twenty, possibly twenty-five years ago. For some reason I found the later chapters heavy-going then. Perhaps I'm a better reader now? Certainly slower.

Packing A Punch

I briefly mentioned having just finished Neil Gaiman's graphic novel Mr Punch yesterday and I feel some obligation to do the right thing and say a wee bit more about it today. I'm not exactly sure why I should feel obliged, but I suppose that since I get annoyed when others are airily dismissive of writing or music or art-works or films I enjoy I should really try and expand upon why I like what I like when I get the chance (not that this is likely to affect sales of the stuff in any practical way - hah!)

In truth, I'm using the wrong title (and, in a sense, the wrong writer) out of simple laziness, so I'd better clear all that up from the get-go (as they seem to say these days.) The 'real' title is: The Tragical Comedy or Comical Tragedy of Mr Punch - A Romance and it's by Neil Gaiman, in the sense of 'written by' and Dave McKean, in the sense of 'illustrated and designed by'. Now that's all a bit of a mouthful, but having gone to the trouble of scribbling it all down it strikes me that it tells you a lot about the text. There's a LOT going on its relatively brief 90 or so pages (I'm guessing because they are not numbered) and I didn't understand a fair amount of it, but it looks so sumptuous - courtesy of Mr McKean - I can't honestly say that was a problem.

What was easy to follow was that the whole enterprise is underpinned by the very strange traditional sea-side entertainment of the kind of Punch & Judy show which I watched myself as a kid and found wildly funny, mysterious and disturbing. Obviously Gaiman feels the same way and the work is designed to have pretty much the same impact upon its readers. Fans of Gaiman's work will most likely love it, but 'ordinary' readers, if such exist, will probably think it all a bit weird and over-priced.

Fortunately my copy comes from the library at work, whence it will be returned tomorrow, so I didn't pay a penny for having a good, if puzzling, time - and I might just take it out again for another look if I find myself mulling over it again in future or having a dream about it. (Not that I dream about what I read, but if I did I can imagine dreaming about this dream-like text.)

A Bit Of A Struggle

It's been another hot day here and I've been quietly perspiring throughout, except for when I took myself off to the gym to perspire very heavily indeed. I'm now struggling to stay awake and get my final jobs for the day done whilst waiting for Noi to get back from her trek north. I'd vaguely been thinking about writing something about Gaiman's Mr Punch graphic novel, which I just finished reading, or expounding on the abilities of Peter Giles of sort-of-King-Crimson-fame-but-not-really as bass player par excellence. But I'm just not going to. At least not for today.

Right, that's it. I'm done. (And really perspiring.)

Dining Out

Just got back from a curry at Holland Village with Peter, Lea & Chris. Noi went north to Melaka yesterday for the wedding of a niece, but I have to stick around in these parts over the weekend due to the demands of work (for the IBO, in this case, rather than my direct employer.) Nice to enjoy a night out with lots of nattering & chuckles galore, but nice to get back and put my feet up.

And even nicer to get the Missus back tomorrow.

A Great Life

Discovered a very fine BBC documentary on the great Richard Thompson this week, courtesy of my YouTube feed. A Solitary Life struck me as powerfully revealing about an incredibly powerful artist.

Two aspects of it particularly hit me hard. The first was a simple statement from RT regarding his adoption of our shared faith. It speaks so much for me that I intend to use it in future if anyone asks me the perennial question: I don't think there's any conversion; I think you just realise who you are.

The second doesn't exactly relate to RT, to be honest. One of the great things about the documentary is the space it gives to Linda Thompson who is obviously an extraordinarily strong character in her own right. I'd heard of the fabled tour in support of Shoot Out the Lights when their marriage was falling apart, but to see footage of her singing the great songs of marital discord and break-up and the rawness of her pain, made me much, much more aware of the damage even the most well-intentioned of us can cause and the ugliness of emotional suffering even in its disconcerting nobility.

The programme dates back to 2003. I wonder what a version covering the last 20 years would be like?

Pure Joy

I'd forgotten just how freshly, exuberantly, great Neneh Cherry's Buffalo Stance was (and is.)

Today I gratefully remembered.