Tuesday 22nd
On this mornings walk we pass the Timid Lady. Its the first time either of us have seen her in months and she seems genuinely pleased to see us, waving and smiling as she passes on the other side of the road.
Much earlier in the morning I’m in Sainsburys. At ten minutes past six to be precise. A member of staff at the door is checking people in and out and as I pass I see the number twelve on her screen. The shelves are full and the few people who are out shopping at this early hour appear to be entirely civilised and in no rush to panic buy which leads me to wonder if people that get up early to go food shopping are more civilized than those who roll out of bed with a hangover at eleven and elbow people out of their way in a desperate bid to secure the last turkey crown. Because I cant get everything I need I drive to the nearby Tescos where the atmosphere is very different and where it looks like they’ve been visited by a plague of locusts with some aisles being virtually impassable due to harried staff busily restocking depleted shelves. But there’s mountains of Brussel sprouts on offer so that’ll be all that matters to some, though why this most deplorable of vegetables becomes the centre of attention at Christmas will forever remain a mystery to me, despite the attempt of any number of celebrity chefs telling us that if you cook them right …
In the afternoon I ring Dr Steg and talk about the possibilities of a collaboration. We talk of Simon and his legacy, most of which has been deposited with Dr Steg in the shape of dozens of cardboard boxes.
Later I’m listening to Yoko Ono after her name crops up in the Bald Heads WA group. This after I come across a story in Private Eye relating the tale of Melody Maker critic Richard Williams who in 1970 was given the Lennon-Ono release Wedding Album to review. Williams mistakenly took the four sided acetate he was given to be the finished article not realizing that the constant tones on two of the sides were for recording engineer purposes only and not part of Lennon and Ono’s first foray in to drone. Needless to say the pair of them were delighted with the review and sent Williams a telegram thanking him, saying that they may even be the best sides.
Thursday 24th
So here it is Merry Christmas. A package arrives from Walklett containing the new Smell & Quim album Cuntybubbles, along with the Psych KG/Mama Baer/Kommissar Hjuler split, a reissue of Pushy Gothic Gnome Versus Charity Techno Gnome [which I’ve never heard] and some comp full of bands I’m mostly unfamiliar with, last track of which is Eugene Chadbourne meets Harsh Noise Movement in a collaboration that you have to file under ‘things you thought would never happen’.
In the park this morning I place two bird feeder fat balls on the wall where the rats are living and within two minutes a rat has picked one of them up and is carrying around in its wide stretched jaws, having chewed through the netting it carries it off. On the bird feeding tables that used to be chess playing tables I scatter some berry favoured suet which seems to send the park bird population in to paroxysms of delight and we’re soon surrounded by great tits, robins, starling, magpies, blackbirds, sparrows, dunnocks and of course pigeons, those muggers of the bird world who muscle everybody out of their way, fill their crops and bugger off, leaving where once was berry flavored suet a rather dirty chess board.
I call in to see my father and drop his presents off. We talk Brexit, Trump, cricket, rugby and what he’ll be having for Christmas dinner which seems to be a pick of anything from his well stuffed fridge. With his whisky and the latest series of Better Call Saul he’ll be OK for a while yet. He nonchalantly tells me that he’s been watching documentaries on Youtube [via his smart TV] this after he earlier tried to convince me that his TV has a mind of its own and how certain channels disappear only to reappear at a later date. Last week Netflix took over his set and I’m pretty sure he came close to throwing his shoe at it but all seems normal now. His next door neighbour is as deaf as him and due to the wafer thin dividing wall of the bungalow I can clearly hear whatever it is she’s watching. When my sister lived there she told me that one night he fell asleep in the chair so she turned the TV down to give her ears a rest but was still able to follow what was going on as the neighbour was watching the same channel.
[Christmas happens here - a magical time of year when half the population is pissed by midday]
Saturday 26th
Spend Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day avoiding people which is quite easy to do if you’re out of the door by eight am. This morning was no different but after arriving back home and nipping out to Sainsburys in hunter gatherer mode I notice that the number of walkers, dog walkers, joggers and cyclists doing the rounds has increased to what I consider dangerous levels. One woman is in an argument with three cyclists who are of course on the pavement on the wrong side of the road. I can only deduce that all these people have recently emerged from three day drink and food induced comas and having survived last night’s Storm Bella have decided to blow away the cobwebs by setting off into the teeth of its remnants.
The early morning Christmas Day walk is a quiet one and one which we spend walking mostly in silence. It thus comes as a huge shock to be wished a Happy Christmas by one householder who is stood on the threshold of his house in slippers and gown having an early morning fag.
Sunday 27th
Andy Jarvis & Thomas Tyler - Deus Sive Natura
Steep Gloss. SG 23. cassette
Body Has No Head - Voice in the Other Room/Refacing
Steep Gloss. SG 25. Cassette
So there it went then, probably the weirdest Christmas any of us will ever know. Assuming of course that things will be ‘back to normal’ by the time the next one comes around. Whatever ‘normal’ is looking like by then.
I’ve done my bit by staying away from other people and genuinely trying to do my best for the greater cause but if the street where I live is any indication of the bigger picture, it would appear that me and Mrs Fisher are in the minority.
Having been furloughed until the 18th of January and with the better part of two of the darkest month of the year sitting in front of me like menacing succubi, I felt that the best way to avoid disappearing down a miserable pit of despair, would be to grasp the thing by the nettle so to speak. One of my biggest problems at this time of the year is the overconsumption of alcohol and the effects this has on my delicate physiognomy. Knowing my limits in regard to the indulgence of distilled spirits, wine, beer and festive comestibles I thought it prudent to leave them alone entirely this year thus avoiding the dead, wasted mornings and the interminable hangovers altogether and with the time thus gained, write, draw, read, listen to the radio, catch the back end of the cricket from Australia before it goes off at seven am, anything but wallow in my pit with a banging head and churning guts. This is an approach that I’ve never taken before, what with me being quite partial to having a glass of something to hand once the clock gets past four and it was something I wasn’t sure I’d be capable of doing now. My mission is helped by Mrs Fisher not having touched a drop since September and despite having numerous bottles of various types, strengths and colours in the house I thought I’d give it a go.
This lasted until Christmas Day when I opened one of those 175ml bottles of wine you get in supermarkets that are marketed at people who want just the one glass of wine. I always wondered who bought such things and now I know. Of course this was all preplanned, the bottle in question [a passable Rioja] was bought in the last food shop before pulling up the drawbridge so it was always my intention to have a glass of wine with the Christmas Day meal. Then there was the post prandial cheese board and crackers and who can eat cheese and crackers without a glass of port? Certainly not me and having several bottles in the house I had to open one because not to do so would contravene some kind of Christmas Port Law that I’m sure exists. So it was no surprise to wake up on Boxing Day with a hangover. Just a headache but enough to necessitate the taking of pharmaceuticals. It soon passed and normality was restored. Helped along by ten cups of tea and some bananas I was back on the road to recovery and out for a walk, the cold winter wind buffing the cheekbones to a nice red hue before home, drawbridge and a Japanese anime film that passed without much comment.
One of the upsides to not drinking is that you have lots of time on your hands. All I have to do now is make the most of it. Its not unusual therefore to find myself listening to noise at ungodly hours of the morning. While the world around me is dark and quiet I’m sat in the poang listening to Body Has No Head and Jarvis and Tyler. Its an approach I can highly recommend taking advantage as it does of the solitude on offer at such times.
Body Has No Head is another outfit featuring Cody Brant who last appeared on these pages with a cassette of found American home recordings that I sent to Dr Steg and by the sounds of it is still swilling around as part of the 200 million packages currently within the Royal Mail postal system. Recorded in 2013 Brant is joined by Shane McDonell for two sides of primitive nineties noise the kind of which I hadn’t listened to in a long time until yesterday when I listened to the recently reissued Smell & Quim release Gothic Pushy Gothic Gnome Versus Techno Charity Gnome [of which more later]. The resemblance to the second side of Pushy Gothic Gnome to whichever side of BHNH is I’m listening to now is quite remarkable with that long, repetitive pounding that has no end in sight filled with screams, honking drones and all manner of electronic screech. It doesn’t last long enough though before we are thrown in to table top noise land where cassette abuse, joins gadget noise, electro clatter, strafed bridge strings, xylophones gone mad and all that good stuff that used to turn up here on a regular basis thanks to labels like Smell The Stench. Maybe a hint of a boisterous electroacousitc set up here which, having no info to go on, I’ll settle for. An entertaining trip.
The Jarvis/Tyler tape follows a similar noisy path albeit it from 5000 miles away in Stoke-on-Trent via Newcastle-Upon-Tyne. And I cant help but feel that this is all Tyler’s doing, with Jarvis playing the straight man trying to get him back on the road to nuance before it all spills over into total chaos which he fails at and which it inevitably does. Hence that helicopter roar has TV samples and rudimentary guitar pluck before we hit the full on chaos which is again nineties in fashion and not incomparable to certain noise-mongers of that era. Four tracks for your delectation that all bear the imprint of those determined to do our hearing no end of damage with howling screams, metal destruction, scrape, Dicta-noise, feedback and for respite and balance the appearance of the occasional showtime crooner. All I want is a room somewhere ...
https://steepgloss.bandcamp.com/album/deus-sive-natura
https://steepgloss.bandcamp.com/album/voice-in-the-other-room-refacing
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