The Imperceptible Immigrant

Dignified…

July 9, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

…and whilst on the subject…

Casual readers with curious natures (should there be any such) might have found themselves scratching their heads for a second or two trying to puzzle out just why our boat is called ‘Dignity‘.

The answer – naturally – can as ever be found within the very pages of this journal (references here and here). Got it? Good – no need for me to explain further…

Now – just the other day I was pottering around on the jolly old InterWebNet (as you do!) and found myself looking up Deacon Blue’s “A ship called Dignity” once again. In the process I discovered an article from a couple of years back the headline of which suggested that Ricky Ross – the estimable lead singer and main song-writer for the band – had become really rather fed up with people naming their boats after his hit song.

As is the way of such things when I read the article I found that the true story is actually somewhat different. Ricky was expressing ‘indignation’ at the number of people who contact him to tell him that they have used the name – but without inviting him to take a trip aboard the boat in question. This can – of course – be particularly annoying should the vessel concerned be a big’ fuck-off’ boat!

Now – should Mr Ross ever find himself on the west coast of Canada (a tour would be nice… lots of Scots here!) he really would be most welcome aboard our ‘Dignity’ – and we would happily show him some of the beautiful spots that are to be found hereabouts.

I’m not sure – however – that that is quite what he had in mind…

Tags: Boats, Dignity, Music

Homeward bound

May 19, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

There came a moment – just over an hour and twenty minutes into the opening night of Paul Simon’s ‘Homeward Bound‘ farewell tour in Vancouver on Wednesday last – when the most excellent fifteen piece band brought an exuberant rendition of ‘You Can Call me Al‘ to a juddering close and the great man himself stepped forward to acknowledge and bask in the applause of the devoted crowd – when a sudden startled stir rippled through the arena. Was that it? Had a mere sixteen songs from Simon’s extraordinarily extensive back-catalogue been all that we would be left to remember him by?

It was not enough. Not by a long chalk…

Three extended encores (featuring ten further songs and lasting for a full fifty minutes) later we reluctantly let the man go. He is – after all – seventy five years of age and this was the first night of a long tour. Perhaps he was testing the water – investigating what was possible and seeing how far he could push a voice that – whilst it sounded a little tenuous at the start – warmed up more and more as the evening progressed.

Were we satisfied? Well – of course we were – though much of the talk afterwards was of classic tracks that had not been included. There was no ‘Kodachrome‘ – no ‘Train in the Distance‘ – no ‘Only Living Boy in New York‘… but I guess that is the inevitable side-effect of having such a voluminous inventory of classic compositions from which to choose.

Simon ended alone on stage singing – along, it seemed, with the entire crowd – ‘The Sound of Silence‘. My view (widely shared of course) that the man is a complete genius was again borne out by the recognition anew that his music – even that dating from the mid-sixties – has really not aged at all – neither in its poetry nor its melodies. This is surely a true mark of the enduring legacy that this great artist has gifted to us. He makes us sing – he makes us happy – he makes us dance – he moves us to tears (at least three times during Wednesday night’s show).

More than this we cannot ask – though should his tease that he had only billed the tour as his farewell so as to be able to push up the ticket prices turn out to be true – I have no doubt at all that he would be welcomed back to the West Coast with open arms.

Genius! ‘Nuff said!

Tags: Celebration, Music, Writing

The universal language

April 28, 2018 in Life as we know it | Permalink

“Music is the universal language of mankind”.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

One of the fascinating aspects of life post-(semi)-retirement here in Victoria has been the unexpected number of music acts that we have seen – many of them British and a fair percentage that I had not seen live before (regardless of having had many opportunities so to do in the past in the UK).

I have previously waxed lyrical about seeing Ringo Starr’s All Star band and my joy at being able to experience Peter Gabriel in Canada – something that I had really not expected – was unconfined.

In but a couple of week’s time we will be in Vancouver to see Paul Simon on his retirement tour. He is another that I have never gotten around to seeing and am chuffed at the opportunity so to do before it is too late.

The Proclaimers will be in Victoria later in the year and we have tickets! I have not seen them before either and would not perhaps have thought so to do were it not that I recently saw a fascinating documentary about them (narrated by David Tennant) that filled me with admiration for their ethos and work ethic.

I have long been a Simple Minds fan but have as yet – you’ve guessed it – never seen them live. I was recently listening to one of their greatest hits compilations and decided to look them up online to see if they are still active. I quickly discovered that they have recently released a new CD and are touring Europe during the summer. Sampling the new tracks online I was delighted to find the band back in vintage form. I rapidly purchased the album – lamenting the while the fact that the band’s tour did not extend to North America.

The very next morning The Girl received an email notification (she is massively organised in such matters) that the Minds had extended their tour and would be closing it in Vancouver at the end of October!

No prizes for guessing who now has a ticket!

Tags: British Columbia, Celebration, Legends, Music

Here I am

March 30, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

This post is the second in what will be a very occasional series (the first such having been contrived back in March 2014 on the subject of The Who’s ‘See Me, Feel Me‘!) on fleeting moments of musical genius.

When I heard a short while back that Paul Simon was about to retire from touring at the conclusion of his current expedition I realised that – though I am an enormous fan of the man – I have never seen him perform live. I was, fortunately, able to acquire tickets for the Vancouver concert in May and thus to avail myself of an opportunity to rectify this anomaly before it is too late.

Now – few would deny that Simon is a songwriting genius. As I have pointed out previously, a lyricist who can use words such as ‘misconstrued’ and ‘pertains’ or phrases such as ‘doggedly determined’ and ‘arc of a love affair’ without coming over as precious, is quite clearly walking a considerably better walk than are the rest of us.

In this instance, however, the subject is not the lyrics. As was the case with The Who’s perfect palimpsest this post concerns a musical moment, one which occurs in that quintessential Paul Simon solo contribution to the ‘Bridge Over Troubled Water‘ album – ‘The Only Living Boy in New York‘ – a song written in reaction to Simon’s being left alone in New York on the occasion of Art Garfunkel’s trip to Mexico for his acting role in the filming of Joseph Heller’s ‘Catch-22‘.

The song is a magnificently wistful meditation on Simon’s solitary state, greatly enhanced by the gorgeously sinuous bass playing of the great Joe Osborn. Two verses in it hauls itself into the first of two vocal renditions of one of Simon’s brief but typically splendid tension-raising bridges. As it cascades back into the verse Simon’s solo voice is replaced with a distant ethereal choir which matches – wordlessly – the delicate acoustic guitar chords that give structure to the song. For the third line of the verse the ‘aaahs’ sweetly follow the descending bass figure, pausing momentarily before swelling into the final cadence with a heart-tugging “Here I am” that makes the hairs stand up on the back of this jaded hack’s neck.

The empyreal choir (actually Simon and Garfunkel themselves tracked a dozen or more times) reprises its verse twice more in the playout to the song – each time with a little greater intensity and drowning a little deeper in reverb. This delicious effect was achieved by recording the harmonies actually inside the echo chamber at Columbia’s LA studio.

For those who must know such things I believe that the harmonic progression for the phrase concerned can be annotated thus:

|Emaj7 Emaj9|B Abm7#5/E|

Pure magic!

Tags: magic, Music, Writing

…and counting!

January 14, 2018 in Flotsam and Jetsam | 2 comments

I was thirteen when the Beatles released Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band.

As were so many others I was already captivated having heard such extraordinary songs as Eleanor Rigby, Tomorrow Never Knows and Strawberry Fields. Now – on experiencing their first post-touring long-player – I was completely blown away and a lifelong love of the works of Messrs. Lennon, McCartney, Harrison and Starr was cemented.

My most immediate and startling memory, however, of the post-Pepper-release period was not directly to do with the Beatles or with the record at all. My school at that time held an annual public speaking competition, involvement in which (somewhat strangely in the light of subsequent events) I contrived to avoid throughout my entire career there. This widely disregarded event took place over two days. On the first each of the competitors mounted – one at a time – the stage in School Hall to recite a poem. On the second day they gave a five minute address on some subject either close to their hearts or the choice of which they coldly calculated would most appeal to the judges and/or the forcibly assembled audience.

On day one of the 1967 competition one of the seniors (a popular prefect – words rarely heard together in those days) stood proudly upon the platform and recited – instead of the usual Tennyson, Wordsworth or Coleridge (or if particularly daring, Byron or Keats) – the lyrics to Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds, a song at that point banned by the straight-laced BBC for being quite obviously about the experience of taking LSD. We plebeians in the stalls gasped and looked shiftily at each other and to the masters present, trying to gauge how they would react to their solemn ritual being thus traduced.

The world – naturally – did not end. The staff simply looked bored and did nothing. The popular prefect did not win the contest. We mere mortals, however, realised that something, somewhere had changed irrevocably – and we were right.

What was most remarkable about Pepper of course (apart from the dazzling imagination and unprecedented soundscape on display) was the sheer variety. From LSD to traffic wardens, from Victorian fairground barkers to Indian gurus… all human life appeared to be represented not merely on Peter Blake’s pop-art cover but also within.

For this reason Paul McCartney’s whimsical musing on just what it might be like to achieve three score years and four seemed hardly out of place at all and those of us who could not begin to imagine ever reaching such a decrepit age simply took it as one more example of a fertile imagination.

This week – you will by now have deduced – I turned sixty four!

Tags: Birthday, Celebration, Memories, Music, school

…in the air

December 1, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

“The music is in the air. Take as much as you want.”

Edward Elgar

It is highly likely that a fair proportion of the English expat community of Victoria were unknowingly gathered together in one place on Monday evening last.

The Kickass Canada Girl and I were amongst those attending the Royal Theatre for a concert by the Victoria Symphony Orchestra (the first such that I have experienced) featuring a programme which included works by Ralph Vaughan-Williams and Edward Elgar.

In musical terms one cannot get much more ‘English’ than this and the Brits appeared to have turned out in force!

Though I have long been a fan of Vaughan-Williams I was not previously familiar with the F Minor Tuba Concerto – the which work was featured on Monday. In common with most other commentators I do not find the bass tuba particularly suited to being featured as a solo instrument, but the orchestral passages in the piece are marked by the composer’s familiar elegant phrasing and it proved to be most enjoyable as a whole.

Now – I grew up listening to Elgar. As would seem to be the case for many others I came first to the Enigma Variations, falling in love with the Nimrod and sensing that it somehow encapsulates much that is good at the heart of the English pastoral. I discovered the E Minor Cello Concerto somewhat later but the work has grown to have a profound effect on me. The piece – Elgar’s last major work – was composed shortly after the end of the Great War (during which he had written very little) and has been described as a lament for a lost world. To me – and clearly to many others – its elegiac and melancholy mood captures to perfection the sense of tragic loss both of a generation and of the innocence of the ‘golden summer’ that preceded that catastrophic conflict.

The last time I head the Cello Concerto played live was at a concert at one of the schools at which I worked. The cello soloist (still a schoolboy at the time) was Tim Lowe – now a highly respected international performer. His rendition of the work moved me to tears, as did that of English cellist Raphael Wallfisch on Monday last. Wallfisch’s reading is maybe a little more clear-eyed and less sentimental, but the power of the work over those of us who are susceptible (Englishmen mayhap?) is undeniable.

Mind you – the Nimrod also has me blubbing uncontrollably as well. I’m not entirely sure what to make of this, except that Elgar clearly tapped into something that speaks eloquently to at least some of us who hail from from that blessed plot.

The first time that one hears a ‘new’ orchestra is always a somewhat nervy experience. I am delighted to report that the Victoria Symphony – under its new director, Christian Kluxen – gave an entirely admirable performance. I very much look forward to hearing them again.

Tags: England, Memories, Music

Barney Bentall & bathing bliss!

November 19, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

The English boys’ school that was my penultimate place of employ before we moved to Canada is known for many things, not least of which is its plethora of distinctive customs and traditions. These are sufficiently extensive – and codified in such a unusual vocabulary – that the institution provides an extensive guide to its unique terminology for all new members of staff.

One of the minor (but particularly charming) traditions on the staff side concerns a ‘miserable Monday’ in November. In short, a long serving member of the school staff from times gone by bequeathed to the School a financial gift sufficient to provide – on one particularly miserable Monday morning each November – Madeira and Bath Oliver biscuits to be served at the morning staff meeting – ‘Chambers‘. The School Clerk is tasked with choosing the Monday to be so graced and the skill clearly resides in picking the most miserable of the days concerned. Of course, should one go too early there is always the possibility that the weather might get even worse later in the month.

However arcane this odd little tradition might seem to outsiders it had the effect of brightening not only the Monday concerned but, through anticipation, those that preceded it.

Talking of November traditions – now that we are resident on the far side of the planet we are beginning to create (as one does) our own customs and recurrent habits. As regular readers might therefore already be aware – if it is November it must be time for Barney Bentall and the Cariboo Express! As you can see I have extolled the delights of this particular evening’s entertainment before. Suffice to say that this year’s outing was equally enjoyable.

On a different (but also delightful) note, being a household currently without usable bathtubs – but being at the same time imbued with the British love of submerging ourselves for extended periods in hot water – we are delighted to report that our little hot tub is at last in action. For various reasons – having much to do with electrical supplies – it has taken far longer than anticipated to get it up and running. We finally ‘leveraged’ (bah!) our renovations to make things happen and we can now wallow under our new deck whilst the rain pelts down but a few feet away.

Cool! (or more accurately, hot!)…

Hmmm! I think I hear the tub calling now…

Tags: Celebration, Hot tub, House, Music, November, Renovation, school

Feet of clay

October 25, 2017 in Flotsam and Jetsam | Permalink

A sad evening last night…

Way back in the mists of time (actually somewhat earlier this year!) it was announced that the ‘Legendary Gordon Lightfoot’ would be coming to Victoria this fall for a couple of concerts at the McPherson Playhouse.

Wikipedia says of the great man:

“Gordon Meredith Lightfoot Jr. (born November 17, 1938) is a Canadian singer-songwriter who achieved international success in folk, folk-rock, and country music, and has been credited for helping define the folk-pop sound of the 1960s and 1970s. He has been referred to as Canada’s greatest songwriter and internationally as a folk-rock legend.”

Now – it is probably fair to say that for many of us who hail from the UK (and elsewhere ‘abroad’) familiarity with both Mr Lightfoot himself and with his oeuvre are somewhat limited. The name I knew, of course, but I could not bring to mind any of his classic songs.

For the Kickass Canada Girl, however, it was a different matter. She grew up on Mr Lightfoot, and his compositions – as for so many Canadians – were woven into the tapestry of her upbringing. Not a second was wasted, therefore, in placing an order for two tickets for the aforementioned show, so that she might revisit old favourites and stir some memories in the process, whilst introducing me to something that I had previously missed.

So where – the gentle reader will doubtless be wondering – does the sadness come in? Well – the Girl and I did something that we virtually never do: we left at the interval!

Mr Lightfoot used to have a beautiful rich haunting baritone voice but sadly – on last night’s evidence at least – it is no more. In a form in which the words are pretty much everything, the strained croak with which we were greeted at the McPherson yesterday struggled to render many of the lyrics intelligible. In addition, Mr Lightfoot’s four-piece band were obviously under instruction not to provide too much competition and were dialed back almost to comatose. Given that none of them provided backing vocals either the man’s voice was left painfully exposed.

Checking his history on the InterWebNet I gather that over the years (Mr Lightfoot is 78!) illness has taken its toll and – though I would be one of the last people to suggest that he should not indulge his love of performing to the many appreciative fans who were clearly willing to overlook such frailties – I can’t help but think that he needs a little help. The Girl and I saw Burt Bacharach some years back at the jazz festival in Perugia. He was 80 at the time and – recognising that his own voice was shot – had surrounded himself with three gorgeous young vocalists (male and female) to handle such ‘chores’ whilst he amused himself (and us!) on the piano. It made for a stunning concert!

In the case of Mr Lightfoot the Girl was – understandably – really quite upset. When the tenderly preserved memory of something that has played such a key part in one’s life is delivered such a rude awakening it can leave one somewhat shaken.

Tags: Loss, Memories, Music

More to say…

October 19, 2017 in Life as we know it | Permalink

My post of yesterday concerning the poignant death of Gord Downie was necessarily brief – because:

– the occasion was just too sad and I could not find words to adequately express the sense of loss…

– because in many ways there is little more to be said…

– because there is much more to be said but there are many considerably more qualified (and way more eloquent) than I to say it…

Canadians doubtless need read no further but for others – particularly those across the ocean in Europe – I sense that it may be important to add something more for the benefit of those wondering what on earth all the fuss is about.

I posted this missive on the occasion of the Tragically Hip’s farewell concert last summer, which might give the puzzled reader some insight into why it is that the premature but expected death of a rock singer has so traumatised a nation. That it has indeed done so may be confirmed by watching Canada’s premier – Justin Trudeau – failing to hold back the tears as he pays tribute on national television. “It hurts”, he says. “We are less as a country without Gord Downie in it”.

Given the almost total lack of interest in the Tragically Hip outside Canada this may seem somewhat over the top. All I can suggest is that the gentle reader spends ten or fifteen minutes reading some of the many tributes to Downie, in order to gain just some insight into why he was so loved and respected. For example, Simon Vozick-Levison of the New York Times writes:

‘The place of honor that Mr. Downie occupies in Canada’s national imagination has no parallel in the United States. Imagine Bruce Springsteen, Bob Dylan and Michael Stipe combined into one sensitive, oblique poet-philosopher, and you’re getting close. The Tragically Hip’s music “helped us understand each other, while capturing the complexity and vastness of the place we call home,” Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said in a statement on Wednesday. “Our identity and culture are richer because of his music, which was always raw and honest — like Gord himself.”’

As Vozick-Levison suggests, Downie was much more than just a singer. He was a writer – a poet – an occasional actor – a philanthropist – an activist on behalf of indigenous peoples and much, much more…

Above all, perhaps, he was a Canadian.

Tags: Canada, Loss, Music

No dress rehearsal…

October 18, 2017 in Life as we know it | 1 comment

Gord Downie

1964 – 2017

“First thing we’d climb a tree and maybe then we’d talk,
Or sit silently and listen to our thoughts
With illusions of someday casting a golden light
No dress rehearsal, this is our life”

Tags: Canada, Loss, Music

Music

Dignified…

Homeward bound

The universal language

Here I am

…and counting!

…in the air

Barney Bentall & bathing bliss!

Feet of clay

More to say…

No dress rehearsal…

Gord Downie

1964 – 2017

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