Stokey Lit Fest :the aftermath

Edwyn Collins & band
Originally uploaded by bltphoto

Well that was fun, the litfest is finally over and bar the odd moany never really pleased type was a roaring success. Hundreds of happy punters eager to hear writers etc and ask mostly sensible questions loads of lovely helpful resourceful volunteers who never stopped smiling and getting getting stook in. Special praise to LIz V for her sheer energy and will to get the whole thing moving .

I enjoyed all the writers etc  I saw but Grace & Edwyns reading and concert on friday was the simply wonderful. Their friend Craig Maclean chose selection from Grace's book and chatted with them about their life since Edwyn's stroke. The EC and his excellent band played some choons (if memory serves : falling and laughing, blue boy, time to sleep, rip it up!,girl like you sorry I was bit caught up in it all) anyway they got 2 standing ovations and I got my copy of Felicty signed.

Oh and Ed and Grace are lovely friendly people which I'm sure you already knew..
The Festival will back next years so book early and book often.

stoke newington literary festival

Important Edwyn Collins News

Now it's all offical I can let you have some some exciting Edwyn Collins news. My excellent friend Liz is organising a literary festival in N16's fashionable Stoke newington and one of the many wonderfully events is a reading by Grace Maxwell of her book "Falling & Laughing " and alsothere will be some tunes from Edwyn!
Needless to say this will be great, so please come along tell your friends etc.

Saturday 5th June 5pm  Stoke Newington Town Hall (assembly hall)

here's were to get your tickets from

The rest of the festival is good too we've got Tonny Benn and Iain sinclair. shappi kohsandi Britian leading beer writer will be doing his beer thing. It will be great here's the full programme

If you click on edwyn label below you'll get all my ec witterings over the years

Stoke Newington Literary Festival

Edwyn Collins Podcast

For anyone who may have missed it:
Edwyn Collins & Grace Maxwell were on the Simon Mayo* show (talking to Richard Bacon I know it’s confusing it’s the holidays) about Grace’s new book “Falling & Laughing”. You can download the podcast via I-tunes.

One bonus is EC singing “low Expectation”. The whole thing is a joy. Adding to the good news, there was talk of re-release Series of the Orange Juice LPs possibly next year.

If you go to Edwyn’s website you can hear “Low Expectation” on its own (this wasn’t working when I tried so if you have problems drops us a line and I’ll send you my own DIY version of the song but you have to promise to buy the book!)

*I can recommend the Daily Mayo podcast its radio Five without the endless racing results and phone ins with “Terry from Altringham” whinging about Alex Ferguson just grown up talk with most of the time interesting types. Also every sane person listens to Kermode’s film review don’t they?

Edwyn Collins Vinyl/Heron interface!

You may have missed Edwyn in the Observer on Sunday(sorry for the patchy scan) EC has a suitably vibrant music room pleasingly full of stuff.

Sounds like he's working on some tunes which is good even if it just helps him get better. There's some more of my EC scans etc here

Music to listen to and enjoy

Tunes on Sunday.
Here’s some recommendations for you.

Alpinism and other spring pursuits
My Last Fm widget gives the game away (particularly now I have the scrobbler on my phone) current faves are School of Seven Bells and the Byrds and some of the songs off the latest War child charity records.
First up School of Seven Bells Alpinism* who are really good I’ve seen umpteen descriptions of them suffice to say they have lush guitars with lush harmonised female voices and some electronics thrown in it’s all a bit 4AD or perhaps Stereolab but not as furrow browed & continental but you know well really good none the less. There’s even one track that’s got a Hooky/Joy Division bass line.

War what is it good for.......
Which brings us to the Hotchip's cover of Transmission on the Warchild LP which is good too, they turn up the Kraftwerk pedal and throw in some steel pan percussion hurrah! I’m also taken with Sister Sisters version of “Do the Strand” which I can see going down a storm at weddings this summer. The Lp’s all covers, you should avoid Beck’s (just in general not just here!) and for the same reasons The Kooks who make the mistake of covering a song previously covered by The Fall (which is always a hiding to nuffin’).
The rest of the tracks aren’t bad even Lilly Allen doesn’t have me shuffling past but the stand out track and further proof that Elbow are the greatest thing to come out of Bury since the flying shuttle .

Using the source material of a U2 song (running to stand still) they transmute it to if not gold one of those pebbles you find at the beach that sparkles when slick with sea water. I’ll stop now but it is excellent.
Not sure with this being for charity what you should do either buy the full lp it’s only a few quid or buy the tracks you like and top up the funds direct via gift aid.

12 string heroes well on most worlds anyway.
Other music prompted by Ali’s post is the Byrds. It’s one of the greatest sadness that we live in the one parallel world where The Byrds and their followers aren’t permanently top of the charts. In every other parallel world peace has broken out largely due to the sound of 12 string Rickenbacker guitars and roger McGuin’s little glasses. These worlds were even David Crosby’s occasional loud mouth nonsense is tolerated where no child goes without shoes, every women is educated and Marathons never go renamed Snickers. Sadly on this version of earth Simon Callow even muscles his way on to the cover of Orange Juice singles and for some reason any band who sound like the Byrds will never be more successful than Coldplay and all those country stars you’ve never heard off but sell 45 million albums.

Anyway if you like Byrds and don’t live on earth2.3 you need to head to down to Fopp where all 5 of their albums including extra tracks are going for 15 quid for 5 cds and some jolly repro sleeves in one tasty package.

Oh and I have also been spinning “Felicity” By the Juice mainly because I found the picture sleeve the other day and rescued it.

Cale the voice
Lastly I drove past an abandoned coalmine in Wales the last day and deep from its hidden depths I could hear an echo of a song if you listened carefully you could hear it John Cale’s version of LCD soundsystem’s “All My friends”. Which is just wonderfully I like the original but JC’s version just opens up the lyrics and well its just great.

So to conclude on a Welsh tip and to misquote Mr E Bevan these are my tunes show me yours?

*Things you’ll get sick of hearing about the band very soon, the singers are identical twins (except they look more like close sisters in the pictures!) and there name comes from a mythical south American pickpocket training test you know put some bells in teacher’s pocket if you make a noise nicking his wallet.....

I've run out of Orange juice song title puns

To quote evan dando "what if there's something good on tv and it's never shown again" but this time it is ,
oh shut up and get to the point....the excellent edwyn collins bbc documentary is on I player I missed it the first time and on BBC2 last night but hurrah it's appeared in webspace.

Gin and Orange Juice

What to watch tonight.
I’m off to a gig but if you’re in there is 2-3 hours of programmes about Post card records and Edwynn Collins/Orange Juice which should be good. It’s on BBC4 so you can avoid Jonathon Ross talking about sex toys on BBC 1.

What we learnt from last nights tv.
I was right about the other Jonathon (Meades) his programme North about Northern Europe was really good. It surprisingly good on food, in the space of 3 minutes he said more about Belgium Beer than I’ve heard in years. To celebrate his championing of the herring and fermented grain spirit (gin) I had a little soused roll mop with some of last year’s sloe gin (over ice) which was delish. Just as stimulating was learning more about one of my favourite artist Roger Van Weyden, as well as “stepped gables” and of course the Hanseatic league.

As I did “social” history at school, the foundation of TUC, the flying shuttle, Joseph Arkwright etc my knowledge of the corn laws, the French revolution and Hanseatic Empire is patchy and so a whole world opened up for me along with some excellent long words, big ideas and the occasional outrageously contentious broad statements. He goes further north next week catch it on BBC4 or Iplay.

As usual I would encourage anyone who’s near the Prado, to of course see the Goyas and Mr V but head downstairs to see the Van Weyden “descent of Christ from the cross”; even for non believers it’s a very moving and intense picture, also the times I’ve been you generally have it yourself unlike the Bosches or el grecos...

a rainy night in Soho....

Edwyn Collins and friends:

the Arts theatre 19 th Nov

Dodging the puddles and the spray from surging taxis, we splashed our way towards the Arts theatre, the pavements brightly reflecting the west end lights. My friend L was trapped in Wales so a friendly German Subway Sect fan took my spare ticket. The bar filled with slightly grizzled couples in their 40's, leather jackets with hoodies beneath, sequined berets and quiffs, late comers at the back would've been dazzled by all the bald pates and the swamped bar quickly sold out of Guinness.

I was curiously nervous about the gig having looked forward to it for so long. I was worried it would be mawkish, the musical equivalent of hospital visiting. The support Vic Goddard thrashed and shouted his way through his set, throwing away his hit before most people had settled into their seats, a dapper high waisted chap in a suit with pen in his pocket.

After the break (during which a first at a gig the queue for the men's was longer then the ladies), the lights went down and a curious bunch ambled on stage, dapper to a man, Roddy Frame sharp looking and friendly , some younger guys (one alarmingly Eddy Grundy like) backed by a marvelously waistcoated drummer (did anyone catch his name?),

Then after a short wait and an introduction, the main man. Helped along by his roadie Edwyn eased on to stage and his seat at a lectern, the crowd on their feet cheering and clapping.
What followed was marvelous; the most telling thing was that it was great gig regardless of all that has happened to Edwyn in the last 3 years. I knew this because for long periods I was taken away totally by the music with no thoughts but the playing and singing.

It helps that Edwyn has a brilliant pool of work to draw on, any gig that starts with "falling and laughing" is never going to be shabby.

This morning on start the week the famous psychiatrist Dr Anthony Sachs was telling of the restorative nature of music on the damage mind. This was clearly the case with Edwyn, who stumbled over simple words in his between song banter , but was transported by particular his older songs. The odd high note may have not been there but richness of his baritone shone through particularly when he sang just accompanied by Roddy Frame.

It's strange when we live in a world were you don't hear or see what you like for large parts of the time, to go to a concert we you can sing every song is just bliss. There was one of his new songs which faltered a little and the sound could have been a tad sharper but considering this gig could well have never happened, nothing worth dwelling on.

If I had to choose a highlight it would be a close run thing between "rip it up and start again" and the finale of "Blue Boy". After which Edwyn carefully stood up and left aided by his old (and selfless) mate Roddy, the rest of us on our feet whooping and cheering . A perfect gig.

One marvelous bonus in an already great evening was meeting up with the delightful Ms Woo and her long lost friend. We retired to the mirrored cosiness of the Salisbury and as they say on test match special, drinks were taken.

Edwyn Collins Special

The Campaign for Real Rock:
Following on from the laudable example of Ally over at Dusty 7’s.
Here’s my Edwyn Collins memorabilia.
I’m afraid I never got to see Orange Juice live and got into them via them being mentioned by all C86 bands (Wedding Present etc) I liked.


I finally got to see Edwyn solo in 1990’s after “Girl like you” had conquered the world (well most of Europe). The gig was excellent except he fell into the rock star trap that I’ve mentioned before; he threw away the hit by playing a speeded funked up version which disappointed most of the crowd. It was still good though. I think he had Steve Cook from v’pistols on drums.
I think it must have been at this gig I got my fave piece of rock junk, my poems on the underground spoof placard. EC trenchant views on outdoor festival where made long before Glastonbury was GLASTO.
It’s probably even more apt now.














Out of this world:

The last time I saw EC was in rather more intimate setting. It was in the basement of a Thai restaurant on Stokey High st. It was probably 2002-3, Andy what’s his name Jonathon Ross’ radio 2 sidekick was promoting gigs at the “Barracuda” I think it’s called. So me, BLBW and the Delightful L got their early and had some TomYum and got our seats downstairs. What followed was just fantastic Edwyn played the set bellow unaccompanied, less than 15 feet from us (to a crowd of 20-30).



I’ve not posted any tracks as basically even though his new lp is consistently good (I particularly like the track Leviathan), the guy's had 2 strokes so if you like his music go and buy it, it’s the least you can do.

Good News, Good Boozer, Good Shoes Good God Names"

Very VERY Good News:
During a brief browse I found this glorious piece of news, Edwyn Collins has a new album “Home Again” out on 17th Sept Hurrah! He seems to be getting much better and is even comtemplating playing live double hurrah!




Nominative determinism pt12 ( this is true honest)

A friend met a catholic priest who is apparently called Ivor Parish, no word of lie.




Museum of street semiotics: pensile object annexe pt 57.

Someone's new "kicks" just hanging around just off Oxford ST









The best Pub Garden in London?

To the Dolphin in Sydenham on Sunday for a Hog Roast .
The food was excellent (good meat and excellent salads with Eton Mess for afters) and the beer (Pride) was also good. The place is kid friendly and if all gastro pubs were likes this they wouldn’t be getting a bad name.

The Dolphin’s main attraction is the best designed, most striking beer garden in London (possible the UK!).

It’s in a “modern tudor” style and once they get some parasols it will be perfect. A really nice mix of modern industrial and formal knot garden that uses the setting well and doesn’t try to hide the local factory setting. A great change from some manky white plastic chairs next to the beer cellar aircon fans, you get in most places.
Ps. Did you go to school that had a pud named after it like David “man of people” Cameron?