Good Morning World

I never thought this would happen to me; I regard Blogs and Blogging akin to spending a month in a tent with the whole entity of Rap and Hip-Hop music for close-quarter company. You see, I come from an era where typing was a fascinating miracle to kids like me; where television was a one-foot square screen flickering from a cob-webbed corner of an otherwise cold, quiet room - and was as black and white as boring ever was.

I was born in the era of Sputnik and Aston Villa's last success at the final tie of The Football Association Challenge Cup. I went to a thousand schools as my father's home-run in the rat race took us to what seemed like every corner of England's crazy-paved isle. I come from an era that gave us Tupperware, Copydex and the Ronco Egg Scrambler; where Carry On films competed with Julie Andrews for the cinema goer’s sixpence, and where the Kennedy Brothers toppled like ninepins at the All-American Freedom Cafe.

I became a music nut at the age of three, listening to my father's 78s – Elvis, Sinatra, Kay Starr - that type of brilliant thing. I always leant an ear to Guy Mitchell’s Singin’ the Blues too – learning, in later years, that I'd heard it many times as an embryo. It probably explains why I still struggle to whistle - unless fully immersed in amniotic fluid.

So, from 1960, I was hooked on most things musical - so long as it didn't emanate from the Victor Silvester Dance Orchestra - a very popular beat combo that featured in most crannies of the British Broadcasting Corporation's pre-Thunderbirds-era radio shows. Old Vic served up an endless whine of cheap orchestral screechings - his violins sounding like a choir of lovesick, totally intoxicated, alley-cats from a grown-up’s version of the Top Cat cartoon. Ironically, Victor Silvester died in August 1978, whilst holidaying in the South of France at a quaint beach town called Le Lavandou. As strangeness would have it, I happened to be in Le Lavandou at exactly the same time, due to a broken clutch cable on a right-hand-drive, Vauxhall Viva. If only I'd bumped into him on the promenade in the days leading up to his death - I'd love to have told him what his show had done to my tender psyche as a pre-schooler. I didn't, and thus he died without ever knowing the damage he'd done. Such a pity - as I feel it would have been important for him to have considered my balancing negativity before he bossa-nova'd his way on up the pearly steps. Forgive me; I digress.

So, on through the 60s I went, with The Beatles, The Stones, The Kinks, The Who, The Beach Boys, Tamla Motown, and a myriad of other 60s singles miracles singing and ringing in the trees of my ears. I branched out in the early 70s, getting into albums beyond mere Beatles gems. Rock, Prog and Jazz began to consume my pocket money - especially LP's in the Prog and Jazz Fusion zones. By accident, I also got into Opera and Classical music, Folk and the Avant-Garde - even Avant-Garde Folk, as I desperately tried to lend an ear to just about anything that wasn't featured in the Billboard Top 100 or it's pathetic British equivalent (The Top 20). I wasn't much of a punkster though; so, if half-starved rants by half-starved ranters are your thing then, like Victor Silvester fans, it's probably best you go have another dabble with that search-engine of your choice.

Undoubtedly, during the evolution of this blog, many of my heroes, hero-esses, zeros and weirdos will be mused upon for good or for bad - not least because I have little else better to do, as that's what happens when your life has fallen apart and left you alone and cold on an old, dusty, shelf - clinging on to the dwindling hope that England will host another Football (Soccer) World Cup before my tasteless ashes start to push up the daisies.

I've had a few incredible things happen to me along life’s unpredictable pathway. Some are probably worth sharing - or at least preserving for posterity: there was the time I was invited by Ravi Shankar to join him, his band members and family guests, for dinner in a Bristol restaurant. It was, of course, an offer that I willingly accepted, and for the next two hours we talked about the Monterey and Woodstock 'pop' festivals, The Beatles, teaching George Harrison to play the sitar, and how to make onion bhajis. Not wishing to name-drop too much, I once had afternoon tea once with Eberhard Weber, a jazz hero of mine; met Chick Corea and Stanley Clark on a bridge in San Sebastian, and bumped into Ornette Coleman outside the Village Vanguard in New York City. On another occasion, I managed to reduce Ray Davies to tears at a book signing - and have a photograph to prove it. I have gazed longingly into Lauren Bacall's eyes from a distance of no more than three feet and I can still feel their power today. I was invited into Bill Bryson's home - and sat chatting with him for an hour or so during the time he was writing 'Notes From A Small Island'. And – oh yes, do I have a story to tell about a lifetime of connection to Robert Plant.

Then there is the co-founder and former editor of High Times magazine (once published as hard-core copy - out of the USA), Ed Dwyer. Ed has become a good and respected friend in recent years and is a sounding board too. He is one of two very important people in my life who have nagged me to get on and do something a bit more serious with my writing, the other being my invisible agent. Had my life been bereft of both of them, there's almost no chance that I'd be in yours - and when I say 'yours', I'm probably just referring to the thousands of invisible followers who will never, ever, visit this page as my blog strives - like my music, my poetry and my novel, to become the least successful blog ever in the history of blogs.

During my weird and varied life, I've got to meet, even know, a few people in the world of music and theatre. Some of my heroes actually talk to me on Facebook, including Marc Creamore - my all-time favourite poet - which is nice. I will try to interview some of them - if they let me - and, if they don't, I will probably invent an interview with them as a proxy – and maybe then they'll wish they'd spoken to me in the first place. No doubt poems and novels will also have an airing in here, from time to time, as will films (movies) - old and new, and other memories and musings that may entertain, amuse or bemuse - according to what I write and how your head works.

So, for now, thank you for listening, whoever you are. Please say hello from time to time, should you ever come back. I'm trying to work out how I can allow you to subscribe to this blog - but it's all a bit confusing for someone who's dying for a cup of tea and a tuna sandwich. You may consider volunteering your own contributions too, as what is life for if not for sharing - unlike chocolate.

Welcome to The Binary Beat Club. I'm guessing it will always be a bit like this.

KJF 15/10/2018