The war on drugs

Legalize the lot of them, as soon as possible. Of course that won’t happen.

Porcupine Tree and Steven Wilson

I’m currently listening to “The Incident”, the new album by Porcupine Tree. Jolly good stuff, fantastic production. I’ve been following band leader Steven Wilson and his various projects for a good few years now. As anyone who knows about him can tell you, this can be a bit difficult as he puts out so much music. At his best, he really is a bit of a visionary genius.

The new album has gone into the UK Top 30 on the first week of release, a real sign that his and their relentless hard work for many years is finally paying off big-time. My first memory of Mr. Wilson is actually of his band Karma in about 1986 when he was possibly still at school, or maybe he’d just left. They were supporting my band Burnessence in a local hall in Buckinghamshire, I don’t remember them being particularly good but then neither were we!

Porcupine Tree could be described as contemporary progressive rock with excellent musicianship and a generally sophisticated feel. There is a feeling of “beautiful sadness” running through a lot of Wilson’s music, both in the heavier and quieter moments. I recently had yet another listen to the first album by Blackfield (a poppier collaboration with Israeli musician Aviv Geffen), which I rate very highly. The emotionally dark lyrics do get a bit heavy-going sometimes but it’s such a great album! As regards Porcupine Tree, I recommend “Signify”, “In Absentia”, “Deadwing” and the new one. Great videos too e.g. “Time Flies” which you can find on the internet.

Love Or Confusion

All these words
With no sound
I don’t hear
You don’t hear

Is this love or confusion
I can’t tell
The time of day

Take the strain
Pleasure and pain
I climb up
And then I don’t

Nobody knows
Nobody knows
No body, nose
Arms, legs and elbows

Is this love or confusion?
Is this love or confusion?
(repeat)

Originally appeared on the first Burnessence album, copyright 1983 Body Music. Unexpectedly sung to me by Clive Product in Berlin, 2009.

Last few days in Berlin

Back to England tomorrow, it’s been a blast. I needed a break and a bit of shaking up from my normal routines and I certainly got it!

On Monday I went with a couple of friends to The Story Of Berlin museum on Kurfurstendamm, a powerful experience. We had an interesting and bizarre guided tour of a nuclear bunker built in the seventies. However, what really made an impression was the section on the rise of Hitler and the Nazis. I knew quite a bit of it already but it was still a shock. “Germany is waking up!” claimed Goebbels (I think it was) as they quickly rose to power in the early thirties. Oh dear. Some of the pictures, exhibits, sound and film from the time really gave one a sense of the horror of it. I won’t forget this easily.

Generally, I’ve just had a great time here. The train system is excellent. Berlin doesn’t seem to be too expensive compared to some cities, which helps. Organic wholefoods are more common than in England, so I feel at home with that one. There’s been a lot of soul-searching conversations into the early hours with new and old friends, love it. Clive and I have been doing a bit of experimenting with some video recording too. Wunderbar!

Berlin

I’m in the middle of a ten day trip to Berlin. It feels like it’s turning out to be a bit more important than a holiday, all good stuff. I’m staying with Clive Product, a long lost musician friend of mine and have also been meeting up with a dear German friend Andrea and others. Clive and I used to do a lot of gigs together back in Buckinghamshire in the eighties and until now we hadn’t actually seen each other for 19 years – so there’s been rather a lot to catch up on. He’s now a Dad with two kids but still very active musically.

The general atmosphere of Berlin is great, much more open than many cities. I’ve done some of the tourist sightseeing bit (photo at Brandenburg Gate, wander round Alexanderplatz, that kind of stuff) but staying with good friends who’ve lived here for a while makes it all much more interesting. Through them I’ve spent some time with some rather nice women, jolly good show!

Have also been strumming one of Clive’s guitars a lot, part of slowly getting back into my music after more than a year away from it.

Still working with the homeless

Further to my June 2009 post, I have continued to work at several hostels for the homeless over the last few months. The regular weekend shifts at one of them are much appreciated and I’m now treated as regular staff there, even though I’m still an agency worker. The staff really are a great bunch of people and I’ve grown to appreciate the residents a lot more too. The overall spirit of the place reminds me a little bit of the old NHS stroke rehabilitation unit where I worked for a few years.

The weekend duties sometimes involve cooking a full roast dinner for twenty people. This has been a new experience, particularly as I’ve been vegetarian for 35 years! After a disaster with the custard during the first week, I think I’ve just about got the hang of it.

The Black Swan

Crazy stuff! Where on earth did David Cameron get the idea that the fascinating ideas of Nassim Nicholas Taleb were going to be compatible with Conservative party policy!? Apparently David asked Taleb along to speak to a party meeting and it all went horribly wrong when Taleb suggested, amongst other things, that climate change might not be man-made. Oh dear!

I recently read Taleb’s book The Black Swan and enjoyed it enormously – it gets your brain working and thinking in different ways, it’s very clever and quite witty in places. In fact his style reminds me of Robert Anton Wilson (R.I.P.), a hero of mine. Wilson was a comedian, science fiction author, Playboy editor and all-round brilliantly inspirational chap. “Never believe TOTALLY in anyone else’s belief system. Never believe TOTALLY in your own belief system.” I like this, it leaves the mind open to new realities. The prologue of The Black Swan begins as follows:-

“Before the discovery of Australia, people in the Old World were convinced that ALL swans were white, an unassailable belief as it seemed completely confirmed by empirical evidence. The sighting of the first black swan might have been an interesting surprise for a few ornithologists (and others extremely concerned with the colouring of birds), but that is not where the significance of the story lies. It illustrates a severe limitation to our learning from observations or experience and the fragility of our knowledge. One single observation can invalidate a general statement derived from millenia of confirmatory of millions of white swans.”

I guess full credit should go to Cameron for attempting to bring fresh thinking into contemporary politics. From my reading of The Black Swan, I would have thought that Taleb is pointing at the possibility of a far more radical change of thinking than anything the Conservative party could offer in a million years!

Torchwood, Children Of Earth

This was excellent in every respect. I only recently found out that Torchwood is an anagram of Doctor Who.

Doctor Who

Hooray, hooray, for the wonderful Doctor Who! Over the last few months, thanks to BBC iPlayer, I have repeatedly watched a load of episodes starring the wonderful David Tenant, Billie Piper, Catherine Tate… fantastic! The scripts, special effects, corny jokes… brilliant! Daleks, Sontarans, Cybermen… all just superbly excellent. Thanks to Russell T. Davies and company, it’s all great stuff.

Being single is rubbish

Having been an increasingly reluctant “serial monogamist” through most of my adult life, I have found the last year of being single yet again particularly depressing. Each relationship dissolves or collapses after anything from a few months to two or three years, and I often have to spend at least a year recovering and building up my confidence again. Apart from anything else, this is exhausting. I guess it’s some consolation that a lot of people are in the same boat these days.

What really pisses me off is that I seem to have less and less of a clue as to how to stop this happening – I’m not getting any younger. For a long time I’ve been very aware of the many issues from my messy childhood, and how these may obviously have set unhealthy patterns or fears about commitment. I believe I have dealt with these to the best of my ability – I have been up for long-term commitment for ages now – but it just doesn’t work out. Incompatibility of one kind or another seem to rear its head every time. Perhaps I am over-sensitive in some ways, but knowing that doesn’t seem to help.

Moan, moan, moan! I wouldn’t mind so much if I had some family support but there’s often not been much going on there either (only child, severely troubled soul for a mother, often unsupportive father, you get the idea… lovely stepmother though!). Thank God for my wonderful friends, they really help keep me alive. Astrologically, perhaps I’ll feel better when Saturn has moved away from my 7th house Moon next month.