This Is London

We spent last weekend in London, staying with friends on the outskirts and then travelling in on Saturday and Sunday. On Saturday morning we headed for the National Covid Memorial on the Albert Embankment, next to Westminster Bridge. Last December, shortly after he died a friend of Eliza's who is at university in London went down to the memorial and added his name inside one of the hearts painted on the wall. The memorial grew organically, started by the bereaved without official permission, with names added as the death toll mounted. It stretches from Westminster Bridge to Lambeth Bridge, half a mile long, thousands of names of ordinary people who died from Covid added with dates and messages by family members and friends. 

I expected it to be very moving and it was- Isaac's name, part of this sea of hearts and names, each one an individual loss, and it had us in tears. In a part of London full of official and state memorials, statues of monarchs, generals and prime ministers, there's something very honest and democratic about hand painted hearts and marker pen remembrances. It was emotional. Thinking it still is. 

From there we crossed back to the north side of the Thames using Lambeth Bridge, walked up Whitehall and got the tube up to Primrose Hill we we sat in the sunshine, had some food and enjoyed the view. 

From Primrose Hill we walked to Camden via Regents Canal, had a couple of drinks in the sun and then headed to Soho where they happen to have four of the best record shops in the country within a few hundred yards of each other (Phonica, Sister Ray, Sounds Of The Universe and Reckless). I somehow managed to take us down Dean Street in Soho, home to the Sabres Of Paradise office in the 90s, where Andrew Weatherall and friends based their operations above a strip club and next door to a house once occupied by Karl Marx. The doorman at Sunset Strip said that the guerrilla Weatherall plaque gets more attention than the Karl Marx one these days. I think both Weatherall and Marx would have been amused by that. We had a couple more drinks in the evening sunshine outside the John Snow pub, Soho filling with Saturday night revellers, and then a tube and train back to our accommodation. 

On the Sunday we trained and tubed it back into central London and walked from Baker Street to Hyde Park, stopped in at The V&A for an hour or two, missed out on the Natural History Museum due to the length of the queues, and then headed west, ambling up Portobello Road towards the Westway and then Ladbroke Grove. I was looking, at least in part, for The Clash's London I suppose. 

There is nothing quite like walking round London, flitting from one part to another, finding something to see round every corner, road and place names that are familiar from TV and songs and part of the culture we all grow up with. In some ways, London is a different place to much of the rest of the country- in parts of central London it feels like being in a different country altogether. We had a good time, tiring too and with some emotional moments, but it was well worth escaping for weekend. This weekend, we have no plans at all- and that feels ok too. 

This song is by The Times, the indie/ punk vehicle for the talented Ed Ball, released on an album of the same name in 1983 on Artpop! Records, a driving, low fi slice of early 80s Londonisms. 

This Is London

For balance and also from 1983 this is Get Out Of London by Intaferon, a single produced by Martin Rushent. Get Out Of London is one of those minor hit/ lost gems, powered by frantic acoustic guitars and a torrent of words, which only slows slightly for the refrain, 'I gotta g-g-ggg-g-g- get out of London', followed by the sound of a train passing, before the tumult kicks back in. 

Get Out Of London

 

Lovers

14th February. Valentine's Day in lockdown, difficult to spark some romance perhaps when you've been living in confined quarters for the best part of a year and a dinner date in a restaurant is out of the question- a takeaway tea or coffee while sheltering from the arctic blasts that have been heading our way this week is the most that lovers can hope for. We've still got music though. Here's some songs for lovers.

First The Scientist and a rocking dub from 1980, recorded at Channel One and mixed at King Tubby's, Sly and Robbie on board with bass and drums. 

Lovers

From 1991 and  Love Corporation,  Ed Ball's loved up Creation Records dance division- chunky drums, piano runs and thumping bass. 

Lovers

Tones

It never rains eh? We had  a positive test for Covid within our household yesterday so are all now isolating for fourteen days- it's made all the more difficult by the fact our eldest is clinically extremely vulnerable so we're having to be extra- isolated within the house as far as possible (with only one bathroom) and extra- careful with the risks of cross infection. It's all it of a nightmare. 

As a distraction, here's some music- in 1990 Love Corporation released an acid house infused album called Tones. Love Corporation were Ed Ball's one man band, an side project from his music made as The Times. Tones is a six track record with Palatial as the stand out, a song later remixed by Danny Rampling, but the rest of the album is worth spending some time with too- a lesser known but rather good slice of 1990.

Palatial

Lovetones

Focus Your Attention On A Spot

Today's post accidentally fits in really well with David Byrne's ideas about finding vocals and using them in new musical places (see yesterday's My Life In the Bush Of Ghosts post). A while ago someone somewhere, sorry I can't remember who, posted two Orbital tracks both released in 1990, one the B-side to Chime and the other a remix of that B- side from the Omen 12". Deeper and 2 Deep take the voice from a relaxation tape, designed to help people who were unable to relax or get to sleep, calm down and chill the fuck out. A warm, calming voice appropriated by the Hartnoll brothers and laid over some techno. Knowing, ironic, a bit trippy. 'Close your eyes and relax...'

2 Deep

I put both versions onto a compilation CD along with other similar stuff and found that they sounded really good driving to and from work. Thankfully they didn't cause me to relax so much that I fell asleep at the wheel. That would not have been relaxing.

Also from 1990 and in the same ballpark is this from Ed Ball's Love Corporation- sparkling, inventive acid house with a vocal found on a New Age, meditation tape, remixed by the King of Shoom Danny Rampling. 'Close your eyes and begin to breathe slowly and deeply...'

Palatial (Danny Rampling Remix)

'Revel in this sleep and I will return in a minute'

Bleu Bandulu

In the second hand record shop the other day I picked up a 12" of Lundi Bleu by The Times. The Times was Ed Ball's (note NOT Ed Balls) acid house project and Lundi Bleu was his cover version of Blue Monday which I posted here several years ago. The 12" had two remixes of the track by The Grid which were what caught my eye and at £2.00 I decided it was worth a punt, having heard none of the remixes before. The two Grid remixes are both good, dubby with vocal samples, chugging away nicely. Here's The Grid's World Communications remix. It's a Youtube video only I'm afraid- my computer issues continue and ripping anything is a bridge too far at the moment.



I enjoyed both The Grid remixes, especially as being off this week I had the house to myself and could turn it up loud enough and sit back with a cup of tea. But the real treat is on the flipside with Bandulu's remix. Bandulu were from London, also on Creation and made reggae influenced dub/techno. Their remix of Lundi Bleu is a delight which defies description really- bubbling sounds and bouncing bass with an otherworldly, underwater groove. Futuristic in '92 and still sounding so today. Properly making something wonderful and new out of a track.

Give Me Some Love

Good morning lovebirds.

Love Corporation was the acid house alter ego of Ed Ball (of The Times, Creation Records etc). This is a long, loved up Weatherall remix with bells and whistles and breathy vocals.

Give Me Some Love (Andrew Weatherall Remix 2)

Palatial Creation

Watching the documentary on Creation Records on BBC4 on Friday night reminded me of just how many great bands and how many great records Alan McGee's label released, certainly in the period before signing Oasis (after which it all went wrong). It was a little flawed as a documentary, and full of 'we were so crazy, we took so many drugs' but overall the music and the misfits in the bands shone through. So I thought we'd have a few Creation inspired posts starting with Love Corporation, Ed Ball's dance project, included on the still magnificent 1991 compilation Keeping The Fath. Alan McGee invented acid house, didn't you know?

Palatial (Danny Rampling Mix)

Thanks Everyone

Thanks to everyone who's left messages here over the last few days and to Ctel for the post over at Acid Ted. Sunday morning seems a long time ago now. I.T. went down to theatre at 9.20 on Monday morning and was in for five hours. The consultant said the cochlear implant was tricky to get into place due to I.T.'s 'abnormal cranium' (funny shaped skull in layman's terms), but after getting an x-ray last night he told us it was 'a perfect insertion'. A phrase you might want to consider using at some point. Maybe. He had a ridiculously big bandage on his head which only just lasted until this morning, and three courses of IV antibiotics during the night to protect his immune system (I.T.'s immune system has never fully recovered from chemo during his two bone marrow transplants in 2000). Anyway, we're home now with a bag full of medicines and a boy asking if his new ear is ready to be switched on. It won't be for a few weeks, so he must be wondering why he's had an operation at all.

Since writing that paragraph I've had to drive him back to the hospital. He'd pulled his dressing off when no-one was looking. We've been sent home with enough steri-strips to patch up an army.


While blocking out the outside world this song came up on the mp3 player- Manchester by The Times (and thanks to Tedloaf for reminding me about it via the comment box recently after I posted their French language cover of Blue Monday last week). I may have been in a slightly emotional state but this track brought a tear to my eyes and a lump to my throat, with it's then zeitgeisty tribute to and celebration of Manchester in 1989-90. Twenty years on it sounds impossibly nostalgic, the lyrics coming across as nicely naive (or gauche even, is that the right word?). There are some other mixes of this song that couldn't sound more New Orderish if they came wrapped in tracing paper and added onto the end of Lowlife. At this exact moment in time, this is my favourite song.

The Times - Manchester (Radio Edit).mp3

Version Francoise

Ed Ball co-formed Television Personalities with Dan Treacy during the punk period, set about Bill Grundy, Part Time Punks, Syd Barratt amongst others and set up their own record label. Ball also formed The Times who released records regularly between 1980 and 1999. While finding a home at Creation in the 80s and 90s Ball found the time to record various (sometimes tongue-in-cheek) celebrations of acid house, drug culture and Manchester/London at the time. This is Lundi Bleu, his version of New Order's Blue Monday with Bernard Sumner's lyrics translated into French. It's a post-acid house, 8 minute monster which finds time to turn into Neil Young's After The Goldrush at the end. Very lovely and very of it's time. Art Dept IAMT, currently in Nuremburg, this one's for you.

The Times - Lundi Bleu (Man New Age Mod Mix).mp3