When she moved to Kersey in 1993, Anne Maltby became fascinated by the strong connection to the village’s past. Many of the residents had lived around Kersey their whole lives and their families had been in Kersey for generations. She undertook to record interviews with as many of the villagers as she could, old and young, newly arrived or longstanding. The book includes fascinating memorabilia and historic photos, as well as press cuttings of visits by the likes of Anneka Rice and Harry Secombe! The resulting book was published in 2000 with funding from the Millennium Commission. It is a riveting look at the history of a community over the course of more than a century…

Here is a small excerpt from an interview with Ted and Maisie Martin which Anne conducted in 1996 just to give a flavour of the wonderful memories the process captured. Here they are talking about Stiffs, the village shop, who could get “anything from anywhere”…

Go to kerseymemories.wordpress.com to download the book, chapter by chapter.

A sneak peek of Return To Poisonville. Here’s two versions of Paul Simon’s A Simple Desultory Phillipic, a song I’ve loved for years.

Original 60s lyrics:

A 2011 update (actually a 2010 update, but hey):

A Simple Desultory Phillipic (Or How I Was Robert McNamara’d into Submission)

I been Norman Mailer’d, Maxwell Taylor’d
I been John O’Hara’d, McNamara’d
I been Rolling Stone’d and Beatle’d till I’m blind
I been Ayn Rand’d, nearly branded
Communist, ’cause I’m left-handed
That’s the hand I use, well, never mind!

I been Phil Spector’d, resurrected
I been Lou Adler’d, Barry Sadler’d
Well, I paid all the dues I want to pay
And I learned the truth from Lenny Bruce,
And all my wealth won’t buy me health,
So I smoke a pint of tea a day

I knew a man, his brain was so small,
He couldn’t think of nothing at all
He’s not the same as you and me
He doesn’t dig poetry. He’s so unhip that
When you say Dylan, he thinks you’re talking about Dylan Thomas,
Whoever he was
The man ain’t got no culture,
But it’s alright, ma,
Everybody must get stoned

I been Mick Jagger’d, silver dagger’d
Andy Warhol, won’t you please come home?
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled,
Been Roy Halee’d and Art Garfunkel’d
I just discovered someone’s tapped my phone

I lost my harmonica, Albert.

Who’s Who of the 1966 version:
Norman Mailer, American writer
Maxwell Taylor, American soldier and diplomat
John O’Hara, American writer
Robert McNamara, American political figure (U.S. Secretary of Defense at the time)
The Rolling Stones, a British rock group
The Beatles, British pop and rock group
Ayn Rand, Novelist and philosopher
Phil Spector, Record producer
Lou Adler, Record producer
Barry Sadler, American musician
Lenny Bruce, American comedian
Dylan Thomas, Welsh poet and writer
Mick Jagger, British singer
Silver Dagger, a nineteenth century folk song, recorded by Joan Baez on her 1960 debut album.
Andy Warhol, American visual artist
Roy Halee, Simon and Garfunkel’s record producer
Art Garfunkel, American singer and Paul Simon’s partner in Simon and Garfunkel

A Simple Desultory Phillipic (Or How I Was Dick Cheyney’d into Submission)

I been Dick Cheyney’d, David Blain-y’d
I been Chris Hitchen’d, Ramsey’s Kitchen’d
I been Coldplay’d and U2’d til I’m blind
I been Malcolm Gladwell’d, told I’m sad, well
And that I don’t understand the world—
What the hell am I supposed to say?

I been Mark Ronson’d, Antony’s Johnson’d
I been Will I Am’d and Lindsey and Sam’d
Well I paid all the dues I want to pay
And I know the score from Michael Moore
That all their wealth won’t help the poor
But we won’t all rise up and take the wealth away…

I know a man, his brain’s so small, can’t think of nothin’ at all
He’s so unhip, when you say Dylan,
Thinks you’re talkin’ about some ol’ radio DJ, whoever he is
The man ain’t got no culture,
But it’s alright, ma, everybody must get stoned…

I been Liam Gallagher’d and Lady Gaga’d
Banksy, Andy says to please come home
I been mothered, fathered, aunt and uncled
Been Mark Pringle’d and George and Bungle’d
And now the News Of The Screws has hacked my phone…

Have you still got my notebooks, Kate?

Who’s Who of the 2011 version:
Dick Cheyney, American Vice President under George Bush
David Blaine, American magician
Christopher Hitchens, British writer
Gordon Ramsey, British Chef (and star of Ramsey’s Kitchen Nightmares, a TV programme)
Coldplay, a British rock group
U2, an Irish rock group
Malcolm Gladwell, American writer
Mark Ronson, Record producer
Antony Hegarty, Singer, leader of Antony and the Johnsons
Will I Am, American musician and producer
Lindsey Lohan, American actress
Samantha Ronson, British DJ
Michael Moore, American activist and filmmaker
Bob Dylan, American song and dance man
Liam Gallagher, British singer
Lady Gaga, American entertainer
Banksy, British graffiti artist
Andy Warhol, American visual artist
Mark Pringle, musician and record producer
George and Bungle, British children’s tv puppets
Kate Moss, British supermodel
Pete Doherty, British singer/songwriter

A set of songs about my father, Bill Colyer.

In no particular order, the first is called Beautiful Fakers (Tobacco & Dust). Bill once told me about the time he was de-mobbed and looking for work. He and a friend bluffed their way into a carpentry job on the set of an Anthony Asquith film, even though neither of them had any idea what they were doing (Bill had been, up to that point, a cyclist and a soldier on D-Day). The studio was upriver on the Thames from London, possibly Pinewood or Shepperton. Years later, telling me about it, he said, “Oh, we were beautiful fakers!” So this is about that, and the names of those beautiful New Orleans streets, and old age and Bill’s flat, among other things.

The banks of the Thames, outside of the town
Where Asquith reigns and all’s green and brown
The foreman asks “Who?” and the thumb is turned down
But the gift of the gab, well it conquers the Crown

Beautiful fakers, false pretenses
Beautiful fakers, building fences

It’s a dream world, outside of the town
It’s not Hollywood. But it’ll do.
Maybe you’ll learn something too…

“Sorry I couldn’t fish.
At least I’m outside.
Be home soon.
Thanks for the visit.
Here’s to summer”

It’s all just Tobacco & Dust
It’s all just Tobacco & Dust
It’s all just Tobacco & Dust
It’s all just Tobacco & Dust

All instruments and vocals, MC.

The second, called London, uses William Blake’s short poem from Songs Of Experience. It seems to summon up some of Bill’s London to me—it’s a bleak little verse. One of Bill’s favourite books was Mayhew’s London, a collection of photographs of disappearing tradesmen, such as chimney sweeps… so there’s fog and market porters talking and Black Maria’s (police vans)…

I wander through each chartered street,
Near where the chartered Thames does flow,
A mark in every face I meet,
Marks of weakness, marks of woe.

In every cry of every man,
In every infant’s cry of fear,
In every voice, in every ban,
The mind-forged manacles I hear:

How the chimney-sweeper’s cry
Every blackening church appals,
And the hapless soldier’s sigh
Runs in blood down palace-walls.

But most, through midnight streets I hear
How the youthful harlot’s curse
Blasts the new-born infant’s tear,
And blights with plagues the marriage hearse.

Mark plays great bass and guitar, I created and organised the loops and play the Theramin and recite the words.

Next is a song Mark and I are still working on, called Higgins Boats Nights, about the nights before D-Day, when allied soldiers waited on boats in the Channel for the signal to attack the French coast. Bill went in on Sword Beach, in a truck that he’d applied tar to the underside of, to make watertight. The Higgins boats were developed and built in New Orleans, another link to the city that so fired Bill’s imagination. As the youngest in his platoon, he was invited by the local farmer to dinner in the farmhouse in the days leading up to the operation. The reference to black shellac? Bill met some US soldiers who had 78s with them and which he bought with cigarettes. Gunny sack is from Johnny B Goode, of course!

Here come those damn yanks, black shellac in a gunny sack
First farmhouse lights, then Higgins Boat Nights
Jack tars for the day, black tar on a long wheelbase
First farmhouse lights, then Higgins Boat Nights

Brewing up on the beach, Once more into the breach
First farmhouse lights, then Higgins Boat Nights

First farmhouse lights, then Higgins Boat Nights
Higgins Boat Nights, Higgins Boats Nights

Mark on tapped guitars, asymmetric bass and arrangement, me on noises and vocal, Baby Dodds on drum roll, and Louis Armstrong on cornet! This is an unfinished work-in-progress…

This file is a re-mixed version of the one on the Southwestern Recorders site.

The Parliamentary Jazz Awards, 2011, held on the St. Stephen’s Terrace at the House of Commons.

Over 100 jazz-loving members of the Houses of Parliament who are members of the All Party Parliamentary Jazz Appreciation Group vote in nine categories.

Goin’Home: The Uncompromising Life and Music of Ken Colyer won in the Best Jazz Publication category.

Mike, Martin, Ray, Cleveland Watkiss (who presented the award as Lord Prescott didn’t show) and Paul Gambaccini.

Managed to sneak Rubin ‘Hurricane’ Carter into the proceedings…

“I first encountered the song through a CD burned by a friend, a collection of “almost and never released” tracks – the bootleg of all bootlegs, if you will – a beautifully designed and packaged artefact, with photographs and meticulously researched sleeve-notes that would put most professionally produced CDs to shame; in short, a labour of obsessive devotion. It occurs to me that only Dylan fans do this. Not only is he the most bootlegged artist in the history of popular music, as demonstrated by the academic conference at Bristol University that marks his 70th birthday on May 24, he is also the most avidly discussed, the most rigorously scrutinised, the most fervently admired. Everybody has their own version of Bob Dylan, and everybody thinks they know him better than anybody else.”

I love this quote… ““I don’t feel obliged to keep up with the times, I’m not going to be here that long anyway. So I keep up with these times, then I gotta keep up with the Nineties… Jesus, who’s got the time to keep up with the times?”

Mick and I had breakfast a couple of weeks ago and talked at length about I Was Young When I Left Home, bootlegs in general, football, eco-cities in the desert and Peter Fonda’s The Hired Hand. Mick’s breadth of interests cannot be contained by a mere breakfast.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/culture/music/bob-dylan/8480252/Bob-Dylan-The-way-he-sang-made-everything-seem-like-a-message.html

Driving through California seeing signs saying Cyn and wondering, until realising that of course they meant canyon… and before arriving, listening to a lot of surf music that I’d found, all echoes and twang, and great song titles like Midnight On Pier 13… and feeling like recording lonesome atmospheres with reverbs and delays and howling and guitars that are turned up to eleven…

All works in progress. Too much/too little bass generally….

Canyon One: For Sandy Cate & Bob Gumpert, San Francisco. Oscars, Bob’s Random Tours Inc, Sandy’s beach picnic…

Canyon Two: For Nickie & Doug Mielke, Northridge. Reunion!

Canyon Three: For Bruce Johnson, bass maker extraordinaire of Burbank, and Freddy Koella, from Alsace to Santa Monica via New Orleans, guitar maestro.

Canyon One is based on an old recording I did of Always & Forever, although it now sounds to me more like In The Still Of The Night (except with added theramin). Canyon Two is named for the original town that was at Northridge, CA, above LA. Coyotes, synth bass and live guitar. Canyon Three is so named as Bruce is an engineer and worked on theme parks before devoting himself to building by hand (every piece, literally) Ampeg Scroll Basses. Freddy lives in Santa Monica, has a wonderful new CD, Undone, just out and is currently working with the first lady of France. The track is loops with live unedited bass and guitar on top.

Watch it here

Credits: Lovely mobile bass by Alan Nonweiler, loop drums, rest of basses and all vibes by me. Fine illustration, John C.

Credits: Loop drums, rest me, incuding undersea guitars and Martin travel guitar. Done for a Robbie Fulks “Diva Songs” competition. Which I entered too late. I was stunned to find that Robbie had never heard the original—I had assumed that you had to see Titanic by law in 1997. Love that shark fin/ship thing going on there.

Credits: Melodic bass by Mark Pringle, drum loop by Michael Blair, rest me, including fractured Wurlitzer. Wonderful umbrella.

Credits: All me, I’m afraid, in thrall to a distant Duane Eddy and a slapback rockabilly chorus. A moose? A deer? Who knows.

Credits: feedback and thunder loops, buzzy guitar, toy glockenspeil and vocal, me. Wonderful art again by John. Hey, thanks, John.

Dedicated to Bill and Bette.

[Bette and me, a photo of Ella & Louis, 1957. I was taught well. Photo by Bill]