Moving on - The Nico Ditch

Time for a new blog for 2014. I may post here occasionally, but the Manchester District Music Archive gives me a place to share musical memories. So take a look at The Nico Ditch. http://thenicoditch.blogspot.co.uk/ The title will be explained if you do!

Woman

It's been a good week for music and women singers, starting with my interview with Stella Grundy on Saturday morning, a fascinating performer and writer. Then I went to our Archives+ Christmas event in the fabulous Rates Hall in the Town Hall. The lovely Manchester Community Choir performed some seasonal songs and also led the audience in a tribute to Nelson Mandela.A special shared experience. It was great to sing his praises. On Tuesday night I went to see Neko Case and her fantastic band at the Royal Northern College of Music. It was a spur of the moment, last minute, buy the ticket on the way home from work arrangement. Not only was she a treat, but she was supported by Lucy Wainwright Roche, who shared some great insights into a Wainwright family Christmas - everyone gives copies of their latest CDs , and then tries to guess who the songs are referring to! And last night I went to see the Picturehouse choir do their Christmas performance. They meet weekly at Band on the Wall and I have been curious about them for a while, not least because I miss my singing class in Bakewell now I am working in Manchester. They had invited a guest choir, WAST. That stands for Women Asylum Seekers Together. What a joyous group they were, sharing their stories through song. Nelson Mandela's praises were sung by both choirs last night too. It's been a week to experience the power of music. It's also been a reminder of how far we have come, and how far we still have to go.

Girl

This morning I have been preparing for an interview I am going to do next weekend for Mudkiss. It's with Stella Grundy. I saw her most recent show, Rise and Fall of a Northern Star, at the Louder Than Words conference a couple of weeks ago. She was also part of a panel, discussing the role of women in the music business. I am intrigued by how hard she works - from her early days with Intastella, through a drama degree, her acclaimed play about Nico a couple of years ago - there's so much I want to ask her about. And of course, there are questions I will be asking her because she is a woman in what still seems to be a man's world. Young talented women seem to get eaten up and spat out, so dependent on their looks, challenging the boundaries of sexual behaviour in public, defined by their relationships with men and occasionally women. Some are convinced it's empowering, even feminist, to pursue their careers along those lines. I'm not convinced, but I am aware that I come from a different generation. We had our mavericks, our wild women, and some of them fell along the way, falling prey to drink, drugs and lifestyle. Some were expected to present a gentle and feminine image when in reality they were far from passive. Many were defined by relationships, but who was really the inspiration, who provided the push forward, in those music biz couples. It's made me think back to the women artists who intrigued and inspired me. Siouxsie and Debby Harry seemed to play the game, but in a self aware way. Kate Bush was given time and financial support to grow her talents, had huge success and then stepped back from it. Bjork is still a wild card. Patti Smith stepped away when it suited her and used other aspects of her creativity. Chrissie Hynde and Alison Moyet seem to have worked in an authentic way. Annie Lennox certainly has. Amy Winehouse had such promise and fell by the wayside. Nowadays some seem to be groomed as parodies of what's expected of a woman artist. One of the panellists at LTW talked about talented women getting derailed in their careers, so they never reach their potential. It's a cruel and fickle business, and I am sure you could identify men who have had similar experiences. I listened to the Beatles song Girl on the radio as I was writing up some notes for the interview. What an amazing insight into relationships. Is she muse or destroyer of confidence? Apparently John Lennon said he was looking for that kind of relationship and found it with Yoko Ono. It's another kind of role for women in the world of music, with more than a hint of cruelty and cutting down to size. I'm looking forward to sharing some of these thoughts with Stella.

Louder Than Words

Last weekend I attended the inaugural Louder Than Words conference in Manchester. I have written a review for the Mudkiss website, and I will be writing a review for Archives+, as I went wearing my Opening up Archives trainee's hat. I'll share links to those once they are published. But I'd like to share some of my thoughts and impressions here too, because so much of it was, and will continue to be, a very personal response. Going to a conference alone was an unfamiliar experience for me. In the past I'd been to conferences with work colleagues and friends. I had no idea what to expect,and it was wonderful to get such a warm welcome from the organisers and others there on Friday night. The venue, the Palace Hotel, once the Refuge Assurance building, was, well for the want of a better word, palatial. It could have been intimidating, but it turned out to be intriguing ( the enigmatic Safe Room) and intimate. So the first night's highlights included meeting up with C P and Pam Lee again. I also met Mel, fantastic photographer and founder of Mudkiss. I met Jonty Skruff. We discussed our very different experiences of returning to Manchester. I was impressed that he had come back after 20 years away for the first time for the festival.I have loved my return, but he had longed to escape, and was unsure how he felt about being back. I hope he had a good weekend and a good journey back to Berlin. You can look at the programme on the Louder Than Words website. It was a full weekend of talk, debate, discussion and entertainment. Exploring music through words with journalists and writers, academics and students, punks and Northern Soul Fans, filmmakers and actors, musicians and managers. Academia v. journalists. Many had swapped the stage for the lecture theatre, journalism for theses. The history of music journalism was represented by writers who influenced my tastes back in the day, including Chris Salewicz and Barney Hoskyns. The future of music writing was there in force too, including Charlotte Davies from Hooting and Howling,and Ryan Carse who won the inaugural Wilko Johnson award. The role of women in the music business and the music press came up for discussion.The role of academia was up for discussion too - not just the courses. There are now five of them at universities around the country, but the way student unions promote live music was pointed out too. So in no particular order some highlights, thoughts and impressions. Writers are good with words, so there were some great turns of phrase. The hoopla of language. Longfella's poem, and the Dreamers, written for the Manchester District Music Archive exhibition. New vocabulary had to be invented for rave drug states. Music journalists think on their feet. The dance floor is a magic carpet. The future of music journalism is female. Words are a loss leader. Paradiddle on the snare drum. The golden age of the NME. Gonzo journalism - Tom Wolfe and Hunter S Thompson. It has been said that Manchester is Factory records' sarcophagus. Writing about music is like dancing about architecture. A book or a film can take you to the music or the club when you can't be there physically. Listening to the threads running through discussions I became aware of the folkloric aspects of this world. Shared experiences, rites of passage, mythologising Elvis, and other artists and eras. Wilko Johnson turned out to have a shared love of Icelandic poetry. John Robb's conversations with Wilko were wonderful. What an inspiring man, both as a musician and as someone facing mortality. He's already a legend. There were aspects to myth making I hadn't considered. Dance and rave culture had no stars, no record labels. Shaun Ryder and Ian Brown had to be mythologised as working class heroes to create a commercial aspect to it. Alan McGee revealed something about the Creation myth too - he has been playing Alan McGee since he was 15. Jonty Skruff was inspiring too, when he talked about finding his role, when he could look himself in the mirror. Authenticity came up a lot in discussion. As a blogger, a writer, an academic - it's important to know what you are writing about. Building trust and a following - it's good if you want to publish or make a film. Social media has a role to play here. The commodification of rebellion. The shift when the marketing men and accountants got involved. Women featured too, discussing roles and responsibilities, feminism versus Equalism. The dark side of the business from a female perspective.Women journalists were assumed to be groupies. The manipulation of stars and the derailing of women artists' potential in the pursuit of shock value and publicity.Stella Grundy's Rise and Fall of a Northern Star raised a lot of questions and I hope to be asking them soon as I have the chance to interview her. The dole and squats were good for musicians. They provided time for a band to develop. The world of music recording and writing about music have a lot in common. Nowadays you only get one chance to be successful. I also had an interesting chat about archives with Barney Hoskyns of the Rock's Back Pages archive. There was a Mancunian flavour that was perfect for a Manchester based conference, and people had come a long way because of Manchester's significance. The role of the Internet, the changing worlds of music and publishing, the old order changing, but the potential and possibilities of the new technologies, all this was up for discussion and debate. The future is female - that is, it's about community and sharing. Glossy magazines and podcasts could be the next thing. I had to choose between events running at the same times, and looking back, I chose business over personalities. So I missed Hugh Cornwell singing Golden Brown, but it is on YouTube. So is Wilko talking about his approach to being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer. And the young winner of the inaugural Wilko Johnson award. There are fantastic photos taken by Mel from Mudkiss. I'm still processing what I saw and heard. I'm looking forward to next year.

Write on

I am about to upload some of my old ticket stubs and flyers to the Manchester and District Music Archive website. I'm aware that this particular collection represents a very short period of my gig going life. That's partly because they were kept in a particular 'treasure box', which has miraculously survived many moves, including one to Morocco, two marriages, two divorces, three children and the rest. It set me thinking about what was missing and I realised that there were lots of years when I didn't need a ticket to get in - as one of Allan Prior's hippy dancers I got in free to concerts at Manchester and Salford Universities as well as many smaller venues. I went to the Lincoln and Bickershaw Festivals with Joe's Caff, an offshoot of On The Eighth Day. I had a boyfriend who was chef at the Roundhouse. I was in Drive In Rock. Another boyfriend was the Albertos' roadie. I worked for Alan Wise and Factory both at the PSV club in Hulme and the Hacienda. This access to musical entertainment also meant that I didn't collect autographs. I didn't need to.I also didn't take photographs, though I knew many who did, and I had a decent camera.There seemed no need to try and capture it all for posterity. It was all there in the present. Nowadays I find tickets and flyers used as bookmarks or stuffed into drawers around the house. I don't consciously keep them, but neither do I like to throw them away.I've been in this house for 20 years, so that's a lot of time to fill a few drawers. If I look round among the carefully saved bits and pieces, mostly on the kitchen noticeboard or the dresser, I can find a few pieces of evidence of mine and my children's lifelong interest in music.

Antony Hegarty was a friend of a musician friend of ours, and he sent this postcard with the lovely message to my son as a surprise. From that friendship we were on the guest list more than once when he toured England. I knew he was a big fan of Nico, and whilst I was sad to think of giving away my copy of James Young's book about her, I was prepared to pass it on to him as a thank you for his generosity. Amazingly, just before the concert I visited a local cut price bookshop, located in an old station in Derbyshire.Displayed on a bookshelf by the front door was a single book - unbelievably James Young's 'Songs They Never Play on the Radio'. So I was able to keep mine and pass one on.

As a family we all enjoyed the music of Vashti Bunyan, Vetiver, Devendra Banhart and Juana Molina. We had been to our first Green Man festival together, where Charlie, then aged about 11, had listened to Vashti talk about her trip through England to Scotland in a horse drawn caravan. She mentioned that their horse had been shod in Bakewell,where we live, and at the time he was keen to be a blacksmith. So she wrote these words of encouragement for him.

And then there was the special occasion when Charlie and I got to meet Jackson Browne after one of his Sheffield concerts. He mentioned having visited the wonderful Martin Simpson for lunch whilst he was in Sheffield during the concert, and that gave us a shared topic of conversation as we had just been to see him do a lovely performance in a small club in Sheffield.

It seemed an imposition to ask for a photo. He was busy signing someone's whole album collection for them. I hoped they would be treasured, rather than advertised on ebay. So, not many tickets, photos or autographs, but lots of good memories.

Do you remember the days of slavery?

I had been looking forward to last Saturday's event organised by the Manchester Literature Festival. Held in the Great Hall at Manchester's wonderful Town Hall, designed by Alfred Waterhouse, we were surrounded by Ford Madox Brown's Manchester Murals, illustrating the rich past of the city. Behind the stage was the mural showing the arrival of the Flemish weavers in the 14th century. My aunt thinks that's how our family came to the area, generations of involvement in textile production in a particular area of Lancashire, with an unusual surname tied to that location. Whether that's true or not, I am keenly aware of my Manchester connections now I am working there again.

Lemn Sissay, a local poet with an international reputation, was booked to perform his poetry written in response to Martin Luther King's ' I have a dream' speech. Manchester Camerata were providing the musical part of the evening, playing Beethoven's String Quartet No. 13 in B flat, Op.130. It was passionate music, exploring the relationship between instruments and musicians through an emotional conversation. Sometimes it was unbearably melancholy, but then the sadness was transformed to hopefulness. I wondered why the piece had been chosen to accompany Lemn Sissay's poetry. With his powerful and raw performance, with his references to Manchester, the Reno, the Hacienda, and even John Cooper Clarke, I could imagine the music of Gil Scott-Heron, Culture, Burning Spear or the early Wailers forming a soundtrack to the themes of fear and slavery days, recovery and belonging. It soon became clear that the music echoed his themes as many worlds wove and spun in that Great Hall, Ethiopia and Germany,the Deep South and Manchester. North and South, truth and lies, healing and reconciliation. Rivers of blood in the DNA echoing Enoch Powell's infamous speech.The fierce love of the mother, holding her child under water to protect it from the slave owner's vicious dogs. I wondered how easy it was to live each day as a poet. Can you be so passionate, philosophical and above all raw and not be damaged by it? Or is the poetry the very thing that heals the damage? It's an intense way to be. Poetry can short circuit a soul connection. Where do I belong? I was reminded of my family connection to Lancashire though I wasn't born there. I'd spent the day rediscovering an area of Manchester, its trees and autumn scents, red brick and heritage architecture, which is going to be my mid week base for a few winter months.

I'd been reading Mike Scott's Adventures of a Waterboy, dreaming of the West of Ireland where many of my family came from. I'd travelled on a bus with a young man who looked and acted like an Arabian prince in a turban and djellaba , but with a Mancunian wife and shopping trolley to test his exotic image. Manchester continues to transport me back to Casablanca when I least expect it. I felt I belonged there too but I can't trace that connection through my own rivers of blood. Music and poetry make the same connections. Sissay is a truth sayer, a soothsayer, a preacher and a soul singer. Beethoven faced down his own demons. Transformation was in the air. The Great Hall has absorbed something into its fabric, its stone and marble. Earth, fire, air and water. It was elemental. There had been a thunderstorm and a double rainbow over Manchester. A full moon was on the rise. Once upon a time these would have been considered signs and portents. Saturday night lived up to that promise.

Don't Look Back

Today I went to an event organised by the Manchester and District Music Archive.Play/Record was part of the Manchester Weekender. To celebrate 10 years of the archive, the MDMA were invited to put on an exhibition at the Lowry, Defining me : Musical Adventure in Manchester . It's a great way of sharing some of the stories through people's private collections and reminiscences. It's the tip of an iceberg in that everyone who connects to the Manchester music scene, whatever their age, their era, or their tribe, has their own tale to tell. Visitors could take their own items - tickets, posters, flyers and the like to be scanned for uploading and sharing on the MDMA website. I took some of the random bits and pieces I have, mostly dating from the late 1960s through the early 70s and kept in a particular 'treasure box'. It's amazing that they have survived when so much has been lost or thrown away. One of the items is this half of a ticket from a showing of the Bob Dylan film, Don't Look Back. Deciphering the ticket, I can see it was promoted by the Magic Village and therefore by Roger Eagle. It was shown at Houldsworth Hall on Deansgate, a useful venue back then. I didn't know the date. Last Wednesday I met up with one of my oldest friends, oldest in that we met on our first day at school. I mentioned the half ticket. She recalled that we had gone to see the film on her 16th birthday. She remembered that she was wearing pink cords and chelsea boots. It must have been June 21st 1969. I enjoy looking back to where I have come from, at the influences that have shaped my life. A massive part of that process for me is to do with music. It's how I found my friends and my life has a soundtrack. I know which songs I want played at my funeral. My taste in music and my musical memories still define me. As I look back I wonder what's influencing me now. I seem to be rediscovering old favourites, making sure I go and see the artists I have loved for many years. Even 'new to me' artists like the Mountain Goats last Wednesday night or Public Service Broadcasting in a couple of weeks are old favourites for other people. I don't believe it's an age thing. I have always been open to discovering the new. Maybe there's just too much choice nowadays. I have been reading around the Manchester music scene and it feels as if it's not just me who is looking back. I wonder what is the present and the future. Answers on a torn off ticket stub please.

Time, Clock of the Heart

Yesterday I went over to Liverpool to catch the Marc Chagall exhibition on its last weekend.It was the second time I'd been.Last time it was midweek and midsummer. This time it was very busy and it took some doing to read the captions for the paintings. I have always been a fan. There's a depth to his work that isn't always apparent in the reproduction postcards and posters. The light and colour can be deceptive because the images are so attractive . Some of the interpretation didn't address the questions we had. There were a couple of surprises in the gift shop too. A lovely edition of his illustrations for the Bible and a book about the stained glass he did for Chichester and Tudeley, none of which was included in this major exhibition. The topsy turvey perspective and his use of colour play with your perceptions. Sometimes the interpretation referred to Yiddish expressions and there were several paintings when we wondered if we were missing something in our ignorance of this aspect of folklore. A peasant's green hand makes me think of green fingers, a good gardener.Green faces elsewhere made me wonder about inexperience, innocence or even foolishness. There's a favourite painting which I hadn't seen before this exhibition of a clock with one blue wing. There are other symbols and images in the background. 'Time flies' interpreted my cousin. So clear once he had said it. But it made me think of Culture Club' 'Time, Clock of the Heart'. I hummed it to myself for the next ten minutes. Last night I switched on the radio before bed, hoping to stay awake and see what was on Bob Harris' late night show. The presenter before him announced that Boy George was coming into the studio. That made me think of looking for 'Time' on youtube and next thing I knew it was daylight and morning.The radio was still on. Curiously 'Time, Clock of the heart' was playing on the Sunday morning show. I never got to see Culture Club, though I nearly met Boy George once. I worked with a young lad called Frankie at the Hacienda who was completely modelled on Boy George in 1982. 'Time' came out in November that year . I found Culture Club and Boy George fascinating. He was on the cover of Woman's Own. He was everybody's darling. He broke down barriers. His appearance crossed cultural boundaries and created its own fashion. There is something about this song that makes my heart swell and my eyes fill with tears. I don't associate it with any particularly happy/sad period of my life, though I know I was in a good place in my work and personal life when it came out. It's described as a love song,but it is also said to be about his difficult relationship with John Moss. Much of Chagall's work is described as being about love. It's the possibility of loss that highlights the appreciation of romance in the paintings. It's the tenderness in Boy George's song that makes it so powerful at a time when his personal and professional life must have been as topsy turvey as the perspective in any Chagall painting.

Transformational times - Music and Live Art at Bank Street Arts

Last Friday night I went to an event at Bank Street Arts, organised as part of the Sensoria Festival in Sheffield.

It had been one of those magical days, end of the summer, when each sunny day is a precious gift and there's a hint of woodsmoke and falling leaves in the air. I'd had a good day at work in Manchester, and had wandered down to Albert Square to take in the scene and get myself some street food from the Food and Drink Festival based there. My journey on the stopping train through the Hope Valley was as good as it gets. Dusk was falling over the landscape. As we pulled into Sheffield Station lights came on, lifting the darkness. I'd got talking to a travelling companion. She had her bike. The train was delayed. She was anxious about being on time for a gallery opening. At first I thought she must be heading for the same event I was, but as we talked, I found out she was heading to Snig Hill. She was performing in an anti-choir, an experimental sound accompaniment to an art show. I pointed her and her bike in the right direction as we left the station and made my way to Bank Street. A singer in an anti-choir. A summer day at the end of September. The scene was set for a special evening. Bank Street Arts has its home in some lovely interconnecting terraced houses in a part of Sheffield that has always had an air of mystery for me. I found a door and opened it. In the room in front of me were my friends Keith How and Jim Ghedi. Jim is a wonderful musician and Keith is an inspired artist. Keith brings experience and a young soul to his work. Jim brings youth and an old soul to his. Their collaboration is something very special. Their performance started on time, in a room with some of Keith's paintings on the wall. Jim had his musical instruments and a chair in a corner, by a window. The room swiftly filled with an audience curious to see what this performance was all about. The idea of painting in response to music isn't new. Many artists and writers work to a soundtrack in their studios. But working in direct response to a musician's performance is an unusual and courageous experience for all concerned. The audience quickly settled into concentration, sitting on the floor or leaning against the wall. In a one hour performance there was very little movement. Everyone wanted to see what happened next. Jim's music, incorporating his lovely voice, his guitar and saxophone, samples of conversations with meaning, filled the room and cast its spell. Keith started work on his canvases, three on the wall and one next to Jim. The two bigger canvases were painted red. Working with colour, hands and brushes, Keith painted,sometimes moving to the rhythm of the music, working across the four canvases. The painting made the music manifest. The sound became visual. Psychedelic. Synaesthetic.

The performance was placed in time, there were other musicians and collaborations due to perform that night.There were limits set. The audience witnessed the music turning to shape and colour. Were the paintings complete when the music finished? How many paintings had been created and then changed during a one hour performance? I imagine everyone had a favourite stage of the process. The audience witnessed transformation. Not only did they witness it, but they were part of it. It was a shared experience which can never be repeated. I'm looking forward to the next time Keith and Jim work together.

If walls could talk

Last week I found myself at an International Students' event at Manchester Metropolitan University. To get to the venue I walked past this building.

I hadn't realised quite how significant it was for me. I think of On the 8th Day on Oxford Rd as my anchor in that corner of Manchester, even though that block has changed. 8th Day is in its new building. Cape,Grass Roots and Zouk are long gone. Johnny Roadhouse is still there, though the man is no longer with us. And whatever happened to Carroll Arden, Stylist to the Stars and the photography studio? Cross the road to the old Chorlton on Medlock Town Hall and take a left towards the Manchester Art College, a stylishly updated MMU facility. On your right is a building that I was told was built as a department store, top lit for better displaying the goods on sale. A mahogany staircase led to a mezzanine overlooking the shop floor. In the early 70s it was the Poly students' union, famous for its discos. We played there several times as Drive In Rock and the Rockettes, stage to one side of the dance floor, and dressing rooms upstairs.As Rockettes we struggled to convince the doorman that we really were 'with the band'. Always a great homecoming gig. I wish I could remember whether Mal rode her motorbike on stage for us or Alberto y Los Trios Paranoias. Whoever it was for, it was very effective.I saw The Albertos there more than once. Later I remember seeing The Thompson Twins and the Cimarons. I saw my first snooker game there featuring Hurricane Higgins and lost one of my favourite earrings. The Thursday night soul discos were part of my social life. Then in the early 80s I found myself back in the building. Newly refurbished with an exhibition space on the ground floor, the offices upstairs became home to Manchester Studies and the North West Film Archive. I was a researcher based there. Sometimes I'd look over the balcony and remember the old days , but I was too young to hang on to nostalgia. It's only now when I consider the ripples and circles of my past and present that it strikes me as remarkable.

We are stardust

Earlier this week I rummaged through bags in the bottom of the wardrobe. I had a hunch that some of my teenage diaries were there. Not a complete set, but enough years covered through my early teens and then early twenties to make for some interesting reading. Closely written with a sometimes illegible writing style, it's hard to connect with some of the thoughts and events I tried to decipher. Lots of names I can put faces to, others I have no recall of at all. I think I have a good memory, so it was strange to have to reassess some of my history. One name I couldn't put a face to though I had good memories of our friendship, is Marilyn Zuckerman. Back in those days of letter writing and pen pals we wrote to one another regularly whilst I was at boarding school and in Sarawak with my parents. She lived in New York. We never shared photos, but we did share a birthday. Coincidentally we discovered we were exactly the same age. My friend Gerry had signed up for pen pals and had passed Marilyn on to me. We got on really well.It seems so odd to think of that form of friendship nowadays. Now we would be sharing photos and news via social media and a visit to New York would certainly have been on the cards. I often wonder where she is now. I found her address in New York in one of my diaries and I am tempted to try and find her as we head towards a significant birthday. What I would love to find amongst my papers and correspondence is the letter she wrote me about her brother's experience of going to a music and arts festival called Woodstock. Woodstock took place in mid August 1969 and I remember reading the letter in our house in Kuching before I came back to the UK, so she must have written as soon as he returned from what is now an historical occasion. We were very envious of the bands he had seen and intrigued by the idea of a weekend long rock music festival. Peace and Love.

When Smokey sings....

ABC from Sheffield recorded the song running through my head all day yesterday. Once Smokey Robinson walked on stage at Hyde Park that ear worm chorus was replaced by a stream of favourite Smokey Robinson songs. I have loved his music for as many decades as he has been writing and performing. Like the Beatles and the Stones, I can remember when I first became aware of his music. It goes back even before I officially became a teenager. I got what I thought was a once in a lifetime chance to see him at the Bridgewater Hall in Manchester about six years ago. There's always the risk of disappointment when you finally get to see your heroes. I've mentioned this before as I catch up with tours of my particular living legends. That night the Bridgewater Hall audience became a community choir, entertained and encouraged by Smokey, recalling his past and sharing songs that live right in the heart of his fans. Soul music as we used to call it. I didn't expect to get the chance to see him again. I had neglected to tell my lovely friend Sheila about that concert six years ago. When I realised how much she would have loved to see him, we made a pact that if he was ever on again, we'd do our best to go. Radio 2 set up their Festival in a Day at Hyde Park, with Smokey headlining and we managed to get tickets. Once more I felt the fear of disappointment. He's getting older. It might rain. The audience might be disrespectful and spoil the mood. I needn't have worried. Perhaps the hair is a shade darker, the face carrying a little more botox , the eyes a more startling blue.His gyrating hips were more grind than bump. Was he wearing a corset, we wondered! None of that mattered once he started to sing those miraculous songs and tell his Tamla tales. Talk about Motown memories! The outdoor acoustics couldn't contain the sound of thousands of voices,singing along with him, floating up into the night sky. I realised that we were more than an audience, we were a congregation, reliving all our bittersweet memories. I second that emotion .

Four seasons

Not long after I moved to Sheffield, back in 1990, I went to the City Hall to see Nigel Kennedy perform Vivaldi's Four Seasons. He was at one of his many peaks of fame, the young punk classical musician. Pretty girls ran to the front of the stage with flowers and gifts. The energy and musicianship he brought to the piece will always be a part of it, no matter how many times it's used for call centre on hold muzak. Next time I saw him was on This is Your Life. His girlfriend was a woman I had last seen on the arm of Mark E Smith of the Fall when I refused them entry to a gig. A'don't you know who I am' moment.Over the years I have been aware of his career, his exploration of other forms of music, his fearlessness as a musician. One of the down sides of my wonderful new job is that I can no longer stay awake to listen to Late Junction on Radio 3. I used to love falling asleep to its eclectic mix of music. My 6.15am start to the day means no matter how hard I try, I'm asleep within minutes. A few weeks ago I drifted in and out of sleep listening to what I recognised as the Four Seasons but not as I'd ever heard it. I wasn't sure if I was imagining the mix of jazz and Arabic music that threaded and wove through the high energy Vivaldi. I heard the announcer say it was Nigel Kennedy and all seemed to make sense. Tonight I have had the treat of watching that prom on BBC 4. Nigel Kennedy still looks like he wouldn't be out of place with the Bash St Kids. His energy, enthusiasm and encouragement of a wonderful ensemble of young Palestinian musicians is the most moving and inspiring thing I have seen on television for a long time. Catch it if you can on I player.

Old Man

I have written before about the risk you take when you go to see those musicians who mean a lot. I have also written before about artists who continue to grow and develop into old age. They become the concentrated essence of everything they ever have and ever will be. Others just continue to perform as parodies of their former selves.I'm not going to name them, but you will have your own thoughts about that I am sure. So Crosby and Nash, Ravi Shankar, Patti Smith count among my essentials, my immortals. There are other artists that I got to see years after their first influence on my life - James Taylor, Joan Baez, Bob Dylan. I'd still make an effort to see Jackson Brown again too. Recently I have had an urge to see Van Morrison once more for old times sake. Sometimes it's about nostalgia, or even the bucket list. Driving back from the Neil Young and Crazy Horse last night I was trying to process what I felt about the experience. As the man behind me said to his girlfriend 'You either like Neil Young's feedback or you don't'. I suspect she didn't. I do. And I liked the tender old stuff, Heart of Gold. The magnificent Walk Like a Giant - we did all the way back to the car.The homage to Woodstock 'keep away from the towers' and the rain chant. The homage to Dylan and 60s radicalism Blowing in the Wind.Buffalo Springfield memories with Mr Soul. Cinnamon Girl.There was a lot of history in the room and on the stage. The Psychedelic Pill slipped down a treat. Four old men showing how it can be done, when the music has become part of your being, your soul. Most of the time they were playing to one another, not to the audience, but the side screens helped us to witness what was going on. My concert companion and I had concerns about having to buy 'standing ' tickets. Neil Young and Crazy Horse played with passion and energy for almost two and a half hours. Lessons learnt from the Old Man.

A new Manchester review

I have missed fly posters. Like graffiti, there isn't much of it where I live.In the past I had friends who were fly by night poster boys, dodging the police presence, risking moving in on someone else's patch. Some iconic posters have disintegrated in cellars and garages, the stock in trade of the flyposter. Bill Posters will be prosecuted - hard on old Bill. I like the way they decorate boarded up sites and buildings. I like the information they share. I remember a time when I would plan a night out based on a poster seen from the top deck of the bus, on my way to work. Recently I have been able to go through back copies of a fortnightly magazine from the late 1970s, New Manchester Review. I was actually looking for articles I wrote about food and food politics whilst I was working at On the 8th Day. I had never kept a copy of them. I found them, which was exciting in itself, but I was amazed by the wealth of articles and adverts about Manchester's music scene in those heady days from around 1977 to 1979. Bands I had forgotten about, gigs I had gone to,clubs where I had worked on the door. No wonder it all seemed so intense - it really was! Hoping to share some of those days through this blog in weeks to come, but if you want to know where to find them, they're in the Manchester Collection at the City Library on Deansgate!

Remembrance and reverberation

In the last days of October 2012 we went to see Efterklang play their album Piramida at the Bridgewater Hall. I believe 'Efterklang' means remembrance and reverberation in Danish. It was a hauntingly beautiful performance with all sorts of resonances. Their drummer for that part of their tour was Budgie from the Banshees. The music for Piramida was created with sounds and inspiration from an abandoned Russian coal mining community near Spitzbergen. The town had to be abandoned in the late 90s, partly in response to the lack of funds and the opening up of the USSR and its economy. They made a film with Andreas Koefoed at Piramida, called The Ghost of Piramida. You can apply to show the film, for free, and Sheffield group Death by Shoes arranged to present it at the Showroom bar last week. The film shows just how inspirational the place was for the musicians, but it is beautifully intertwined with with a film made by someone who lived and worked there as a young man.He was a photographer and cine film recorder of the community. He was married and brought up his young family there. The poignancy of family footage and the echoes of the past are very powerful. It's a beautiful use of archive film. The use of archives is very much to the forefront of my mind at the moment, as I look forward to becoming an archive trainee with the National Archives. If you get a chance to see the film, look out for the polar bear, and the way the gulls have made their nests on window ledges. It's magical. Back in October last year Casper Clausen, the vocalist, referred to the winter months looming up - ' see you on the other side'. We are nearly there as I write this, with snow flurries at my window.

Peaches en Regalia over Buxton tonight

Tonight I came out of hibernation to go and see the Zappatistas in Buxton. Booked for the Four Four Time festival, the band features some amazing musicians, led by John Etheridge. Any concert that starts with Peaches en Regalia is guaranteed to please.I want it played at my funeral, because at some point in my existence - I nearly wrote life - I have to go down an aisle to that triumphant sound. Watching such amazing musicians perform Frank Zappa's music was a real treat. I remember watching Robyn Hitchcock cover Captain Beefheart songs.There was a moment of doubt - can he do them justice? And then I relaxed into hearing my favourite songs played live. Tonight was a similar experience. Music I had forgotten I knew came back to me in all its glory. Memories of French friends in Casablanca, who were desperate to have me explain the lyrics of Moving to Montana Soon - raising my lonely dental floss, riding a pygmy pony, zircon encrusted tweezers. I did wonder if, as a musician playing Zappa or Beefheart, you have to resist channelling the artist, or actively try to be possessed by their spirit. They were both such individual and powerful performers, composers,musical mavericks, stage presences, artists in every sense. I enjoyed every minute of tonight's concert. The music of Frank Zappa shouldn't be trapped in digital downloads, vinyl grooves, or even sheet music. It needs to be played live and released back into the wild where it belongs.

Missed opportunity

I listened to Arlene Philips on Radio 4 this morning. She was talking about her Manchester roots, and her struggle to study dance. A few years ago a good friend invited me to go and watch the recording of Andrew Marr's Sunday morning television programme.Richard Thompson was booked to appear on it and he knew I was a fan. My good friend has a good friend who produces the programme.It was an interesting weekend in many ways, because it was also a time for me to reconnect with people I had been close to in Sarawak in my teens.Early Sunday morning we made our way to the BBC studios in Shepherds Bush, and found our way to the Andrew Marr Show set. There was an outside broadcast, an interview with David Cameron at home, before he was Prime Minister.Arlene Philips was one of the guests. Richard Thompson sang a couple of songs. It was interesting to watch the process of recording. It was much slicker than pre-recorded programmes I have had the opportunity to observe. When it was all over, we went for a BBC breakfast, guests and production team and hangers on.I was disappointed that Richard Thompson had to leave, and therefore couldn't join us, and in my disappointment I failed to make the most of the fact that I was sitting next to Arlene Philips. Listening to her on the radio this morning I thought of all the things I could have chatted to her about. Shared geography, a love of dance, escape. I wondered if she was aware of the dance troupe I danced with in my teens. It was an informal group of hippy dancers, led by Allan Prior an early computer wizard.All mentioned in dispatches on the Manchesterbeat website, especially featured at the Magic Village. It made me realise how important dance was to me in my teens.When I studied homeopathy I learnt about a remedy, Sepia, made from the ink of a cuttlefish. It won't surprise you to hear that patients who suit Sepia often express their mood as being like living under a black cloud.The other main indication for this remedy is that the patient loves to dance. dancing energises them, lifts their spirits, transforms their state of mind.I spent most of my teens feeling like that! The dark misery of boarding school was exorcised by the joy of hippy dancing. I was a shy and retiring teenager, a typical self effacing Catholic schoolgirl who avoided any hint of showing off. But I had no self consciousness or fear when it came to dancing. It still lifts my spirit and shifts my mood now.

Bish Bosch

Yesterday I wrote that Bowie's new single reminded me of Scott Walker. Late Junction have been playing some of his music this week, and tonight they included a snippet from Jarvis Cocker's recent interview with him.There are some interesting reviews of Bish Bosch online, and from what I have heard, it follows themes from The Drift. I don't expect Scott Walker to sound like the pop star I screamed for at the Odeon in Manchester back in the days when I was barely a teenager. I remember the surge of fans pouring out of the main doors and holding up the traffic on Oxford St while we longed for the Walker Brothers to show their handsome faces. I still love those early songs - No Regrets, My Ship is Coming In. I loved his Jaques Brel songs. I remember a few of us singing along to Next in the 5th form common room at school, hoping the nuns would hear how subversive we were.I'm the same as I was then, but also different. So is he - still exploring his creative boundaries and abilities.

Where are we now

It has been interesting to hear David Bowie's new single, released to coincide with his birthday. Radio 4's Today programme reported the news early yesterday morning and seemed to think that it was released at 5 am so they could. I am not sure what to make of the video and the song. There's a Scott Walker melancholy about it. The lyrics seem to be about places he remembers - a new method of exploring psychogeography . The video is disturbing in its imagery - those strange little faces. But Bowie has traditionally been ahead of the game, and his influences have been far reaching over decades. I was lucky enough to see him three times in a few weeks back in 1972, twice in one week in Manchester, and then again during my short stay at Exeter University. Much as I have loved his music and his changes, that was enough. The Today programme followed up their Bowie news item with an interview this morning. Sir John Oldham, described as a senior clinician, and Nicholas Coleridge, MD of Conde Nast, were interviewed as obsessive fans. It was all very light hearted and good natured, but the interviewer seemed taken aback that men of such standing in society were also Bowie fans. I think people forget that there's a generation who grew up with musical heroes who are now pillars of the community, and that the two things aren't mutually exclusive. One of them had seen Bowie Preston in 1973 and life changed for him.There are some great anecdotes about David Bowie on the Manchesterbeat website, concerning his early visits to the Magic Village.With his Arts Lab approach, his love of mime, his cross dressing theatricality and stage presence he would have been a starman even if he hadn't got involved in music.Where are we now, he asks. We are here listening to what you have to tell us. Thank you.