CAPTIVATING BOOKS

 The Richard Burton Diaries, All That Is, American Dream Machine and The Friedkin Connection.

KEVIN AYERS

 Oh! wot lovely records these are; Joy of a Toy, Shooting at the Moon, Whatevershebringswesing, Bananamour.

ENLIGHTENED

 The funniest and most touching television series I've seen in sometime, really refreshing. Oscars? Amour, Zero Dark Thirty, The Master and Silver Linings Playbook are all powerful films and totally unalike. Intrigued to hear Bowie's comeback album and yes, The Strokes might be fun.

GREAT STREETS

http://www.gepettosongs.com/

H J

  COOL.

NEIL YOUNG AND CRAZY HORSE

 He opened the bookshop, wearing a torn red T-shirt a girl made for him. It was nine, mood; contemplative. Yep, he'd purchased the new Neil Young from the pier's record store. The wind beat your brains, waves crazed, time for the surf very, very soon. Flicked his fringe, opened eyes wide, no customers yet, an Irish writer, old Ireland on top the book stack. Two floors stocked and burnished with dust, switch on the computer with sales, notes and Psychedelic Pill blasted out, to get lost, like Chet, even if get and just were meant to be swear words according to a Yorkshire teacher hallucinating on the rebel poets.

Scholars kiss the heat, Neil and the Horses chewing grass by the beach, with blurry clouds overhead, float flow, random associations blew, a piercing of sky to let loose a blissful rainfall. Ah, yeah, nostalgia, what used to be, head glow, sadness, you remind me of your ancestors, ethereal but underneath, spitting, angry. Sunset burn, blinded us, could not see anything, music placed in disbelief and aspiration. Way of life, turbulence, to commit or not, to another who loves you. Yes, a romantic ideal, gone to crimson flesh or golden screen saver, arisen from ashes bare. Heavy daydream, amp hiss, suggestion of harmony, put the silver gem into the mouth and see how the bloodstream takes it.

She walked in quietly, with the bell. Her hair once blond, face porcelain, grey-green evening gown, on a trail to the boat club convention, full moon beckon. He had seen her last night on television, plasma screened, a feature from when she was an actress. Oh goodness, she said, your playing Neil Young, that's my husband's hero. Yes, he said, it's the album of the year. Oh excellent, she said, I've ordered it online. You should support the pier, he retorted, did he stutter, might have been nervous. Anxious perhaps. Yes, she responded, I have given in to the needs of the ardent consumer. Break. I only know Harvest, she confessed and paused, wonderful memories. 

She bid farewell, no books, walked down the promenade. How odd, she thought, could of been my son, how confusing, perplexity, where had she landed, displaced, out of bounds, did she belong in movie land or here? Harvest, she remembered, yes, that was a former boyfriend in Los Angeles, the guy who other sweethearts dreamt of. Competition killed that romance. She sat beside her husband, steady and strong, watched the revival acts. Women were dancing, men drinking, some ancient and smiling, others awkwardly in bloom, and then, those, striving to make a place in the world, baffled by their greeting weans. I met a bookseller today, she said, he could tell our story, as if it were real.

YOKO ONO

      There is still a sense of forceful danger to Ono's early records, crystallised in Plastic Ono Band and Fly. When the needle crashes onto the vinyl and Lennon's guitar sparks into action, an incredible freedom flight emerges, which almost kicks Ono into a frenzy of screaming and screeching in retaliation, stretching beyond rock's safe language into free jazz assault. Spread across those albums is an intense physicality and an enjoyment of textured, studio experimentation. More uncontrolled than most of her far more valued contemporaries and less regular than some of the punk rock she was supposed to have been a pioneer of, she later fell into writing songs that weren't as daring or spontaneous but were pretty off the wall and once in a while she'd create something invigoratingly strange and thrillingly catchy. Ono is an outsider, despite her fame and age, she has a much needed arrogance to fight conventional derision and a continuous urge for adventure.
       
      On her collaboration with Kim Gordon and Thurston Moore she explores an unsteady, ceremonial territory which links back to her initial Cage inspired improvisations. Her guttural, harrowing  yet tender voice often setting fearful words against Gordon's sombre intonations. Layers of guitar tones map shivers and drones, ghostly whispers for her to build a waste landscape which sees the idyllic through challenge. There is a feeling that she has been stripped of her positivity and been left to experience a cold emptiness perturbed by strangled notes between the silence. It is sometimes rare for seasoned players to allow an element of worry in their music, an uncomfortable, disturbed concern of where the tunnel might extend. Often arid confrontation can be expected from forms of so-called oppositional interruption, Ono here does not devour chaos but instead seems to internalise it's force, casting a shield with vigilance, armed and amorous.