63 - Chris Rea(lly good)

Last Monday I went to see Peter Green with my dad. Last night I went to see Chris Rea with my dad and boy was he fucking phenomenal - Chris Rea, not my dad, though my dad is pretty great. It was all a bit civilised sitting at a gig, but Chris had amazing energy and really rocked the place out.

Similar to Peter Green, I was the youngest there by about 30 years. However, unlike Peter Green's audience which topped out around the age of 60, there were people at Chris Rea in their 70s and 80s.

His energy, his awesome solos and his extended versions of songs really meant he was one of the best live performers I've seen. Okay, he didn't play Driving Home For Christmas, but it's March so fair enough.

However, when he played Stainsby Girls just before the world's most half-arsed encore (they walked off the stage, didn't even reach the exit, then turned right back), a whole load of mums and dads got up in front of the stage and danced. There was a whole procession of mums dancing their way forward then jiving out in front of Chris. It has to be one of the funniest moments in a gig I've seen. It was excruciatingly awesome.

He finished his encore with Let's Dance then left. However, someone forgot to turn the lights back on. Everyone was cheering for a second encore that seemed certain seeing as the lights were still out. After about two minutes, the stage door opened and there was a huge roar only for everyone to realise it was just a techie. A few moments later the lights went on and there was a collective groan. Aces.

57 - Oh well

I just went to see Peter Green with my dad. Cool, huh?

I was the youngest person there by about 30 years. 90% of the crowd was male and about a 1/3 were wearing leather jackets and bobbing their heads along to the music as though their neck muscles had been replaced with springs.

Peter Green himself sat perched on a chair constantly looking like he was trying to work out where he was, which I guess at the age of 63 and a 'well-lived' life is fair enough. He had what looked like his lyrics book out in front of him and he lost his page a few times. When he spoke it was more growl than words.

Still, when they played Oh Well and Black Magic Woman it was pretty special. The saxophonist stole the show, being phenomenal in places coupled with the fact that he looked like an overweight Eric Morecambe. It was an experience. Oh, and for the record, I still bloody hate Albatross.

38 - Writing music #4

Spotify playlist - 'writing'
This has to be the number one thing I listen to when I write now. It's not a cleverly crafted playlist in which I've obsessed over the order of every song. It doesn't just feature certain genres or indeed only songs I specifically associate with writing. It started off that way, but it soon evolved. I added various songs I hadn't heard for years in that Spotify way. Songs I wanted to listen to as I wrote.

Nine times out of ten when I'm redrafting my novel I'll be listening to this playlist. As bizarre as some of the selections might appear, I've been writing to it for so long that each of these tracks gets my fingers typing, even the screaming melody of In Flames's 'Take This Life.' Wizard.

1. The Awakening - York
2. Offshore - Chicane
3. Now We Are Free - Hans Zimmer & Lisa Gerrard
4. Saltwater - Chicane
5. Adagio For Strings - Tiësto
6. Big Love (live) - Lindsey Buckingham
7. Edge Of Seveteen - Stevie Nicks
8. All Along The Watchtower - Eddie Vedder & The Million Dollar Bashers
9. All Along The Watchtower - Francis Lockwood
10. Never Had It - Flobots
11. Bullets - Tunng
12. Bandages - Hot Hot Heat
13. Sweetness - Jimmy Eat World
14. The Boys Of Summer - The Ataris
15. Huddle Formation - The Go! Team
16. Take This Life - In Flames
17. Trojan Horse - Bloc Party
18. Sway - Lostprophets
19. The Boxer - Simon & Garfunkel
20. 747 (We Ran Out Of Time) - Kent

Listen to it here if you desperately want to.

35 - Writing music #3

We Don't Need To Whisper - Angels & Airwaves
I can't honestly say that I think We Don't Need To Whisper is a good album. I don't think I can even say that I like it. But I do enjoy listening to, if that makes any sense.

Like Crystal Castles it was an album I was forced to listen to by a friend, and put it on while I did some writing. So I'd be writing into the early hours night upon night listening to this album. Whenever I hear a song from it all I can think of is those nights I stayed up when the words would pour out of me.

Even if I don't really take it in as I listen, it has great nostalgic value. I'll put it on after 1 a.m., let it wash over me and all I can do is write.

30 - Writing music #2

Destroy Rock & Roll - Mylo
Destroy Rock & Roll got me through University. I must have listened to it while writing every single essay given to me. It's that peculiar mixture of being relaxing and soothing as well as being energetic and inspirational. One of my favourite memories of my three years in Aberystwyth is writing an essay, listening to Mylo, next to an open window with a cool sea breeze and coastal sun flowing in.

Unfortunately there's not a huge reason to write essays once you've left uni, so I don't listen to it as much when I write now. I do put it on now and again, but prefer other albums that I associate more with fiction writing.

I'll listen to it on train journeys all the time and train journeys, as other bloggers will testify, are quite possibly the greatest place for brainstorming ideas. I'll sit with a notepad and Destroy Rock & Roll playing, scribbling endless nonsense with a broken biro. Beautiful.

For me, this album is essay writing music, it's brainstorming music, it's travelling music and it's summer music.

26 - Writing music #1

Crystal Castles - Crystal Castles
Christmas 2008, like every Christmas, saw my brother receiving a heap-load of obscure albums and not a lot else. I have a pretty poor music taste and knowledge. His is apparently overwhelming and vastly superior. He forces albums upon me all the time and generally I never get round to listening to them, because I like sticking with what I know and I just don't like what I hear coming from his room.

Anyway, that Christmas he forced Crystal Castles by Crystal Castles onto me. Determined to give it a go, I stuck it on while I did some writing and it just worked. It fitted perfectly. It's a simply extraordinary album that somehow manages to both play along unobtrusively as I write, and yet affect me and spur me on. Particular favourite tracks are Alice Practice, Crime Wave and Black Panther.

Unlike other albums I put on when writing, this doesn't have a specific association. I'll play it when I write fiction, when I write non-fiction. I'll play it at night, during the day and especially when I'm sitting on my bed with a notepad jotting down a hundred and one bad ideas.

11 - Space Oddity

Due to the overwhelmingly positive response of one person to my 'Sharing work' post, I've decided to put some work up.

This is the first 500 words of a short story titled Dust. It's not the best thing I've ever written, but it's one of my favourites. I wrote the first draft of it about 3 years ago, and every half year or so since, I pick it up and rewrite it.

The idea came when I was in a bar and David Bowie's Space Oddity started playing. My friend remarked that it was a very sad song about a man getting lost in space. Never being one of those people who actually listen to lyrics, I hadn't realised this. I didn't even know it was a metaphor about a drugs trip until I looked up.

Either way, it got me thinking and eventually the plot for Dust came about. Being based on Space Oddity I crowbarred in several indulgent references to it. After this 500 words, the story goes off in its own direction.

Feel free to comment on it if you want. No pressure. Positive, negative, whatever grabs you. I might post the final 2000 words or so, if there's a similarly overwhelmingly positive response.

* * * * * * *

Dust

She shuffled open the door into the comms suite. I watched her eyes and lips shuddering in equal measure as she breathed in this stale room; the flaking beige paint, the loudly humming computers that had been outdated for over a decade, the two scruffy guys perched awkwardly on plastic chairs.

She met my eyes with a look I’d seen before. This wasn’t what the words ‘space centre’ conjured up. It wasn’t a place that appeared capable of contacting her husband, let alone bringing him home.

I stood. ‘Hello Mrs. Thompson. I’m Paul, this is Damien.’ A pause. ‘There’s not much we can do for Tom.’ I broke eye contact as I said that.

‘You said on the phone. He’s never coming back, is he?’

‘No. He’s not coming back. We don’t know what went wrong.’

‘So he’ll just be floating up there until...?’

I nodded. ‘Sorry.’

‘What about food? Air?’ She removed a tissue from her sleeve and wiped her nose.

‘He has enough of both for well over a year. Early reports showed life support systems weren’t damaged, just navigation.’

Her eyes thinned and she marched towards a microphone lying on the desk. ‘Can I talk to him?’

‘You can...’

‘But?’

‘But,’ cut in Damien, finally getting to his feet, ‘he’s floating so far off course that it’ll be faint at best. He’ll be out of comms range in five minutes, tops. Then we’ll probably never speak to him again.’

‘Probably?’

‘Almost certainly.’

She stared at him.

‘Definitely.’

She sniffed aggressively and snatched up the microphone. ‘Hello, Tom?’

‘Margery?’ whispered the reply, ‘it’s good to hear you.’ I twisted a dial on a console behind me and managed to marginally increase the volume.

‘How are you?’

‘You know...’ Tom laughed off her redundant question.

‘How is it?’

‘It’s...’ A pause. ‘The stars look very different.’ A pause. ‘I love you very much.’

‘I know.’

A long pause.

‘I’m sorry, Margery,’ said Tom, eventually breaking the silence, but only barely, he was now so quiet, ‘I’m really, really, really sorry. Forever and alw...’ His words dipped beneath the static. I panic-fiddled with all the dials available, but nothing helped.

‘Tom? Tom? Are you there? Tom? Can you hear me, Tom?’

‘His circuit’s dead,’ said Damien, ‘we’ve lost comms.’

‘You said five minutes.’

I picked up another mic and joined in, ‘Can you hear me, major?’

‘An approximation,’ replied Damien.

Mrs. Thompson laughed a dirty, hysterical laugh which became a babble which became tears. Through the sniffing I caught single words. ‘Five. Enough. Chance. Tom.’ She collapsed into a chair and dropped her head onto the desk with a thud, gripping at her hair with both hands. I looked at Damien who returned my gormless expression.

‘Actually,’ I whispered, ‘I have an idea.’

7 - ULLAdubULLA

One of my dad's favourite albums is Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of The War of the Worlds. When I was about 7, he'd play his LP of it just before I went to bed. I'd sit in the dining room in my pyjamas listening to the mesmerising music, while he recounted the story to me. It scared the shit out of me. I'd have proper nightmares and yet I couldn't get enough of it.

I now have my own copy of the album and play it to death. Recently, however, I came across ULLAdubULLA, an album of remixes, many coming from the 1998 video game.

I'm not generally a fan of remixes. I don't really get them. ULLAdubULLA I do get. It's great music to write to, very chilled out in places and some of the remixes are simply phenomenal. N-Trance's 'Forever Autumn' is stunningly good, arguably better than Justin Hayward's version. Max Mondo's 'The Spirit of Man' is a real cracker and Apollo 440's 'Dead London' is so haunting it's unnerving.

ULLAdubULLA is easier to dip into than the original too. Every time I begin listening to Richard Burton's hypnotic narration, I feel I have to listen to the entire album, following it through to the end. ULLAdubULLA dips in and out the story, concentrating mainly on the music.

I know nothing about H.G. Wells but I have no doubt that he would have loved a bit of Jeff Wayne's Musical Version of War of the Worlds. Like me he'd be stunned by ULLAdubULLA. We'd converse at length that although it doesn't completely top the original, it comes pretty close. And most certainly he would have chilled out to ULLAdubULLA after a hard day's writing. Legend.