The Dawn of Fruupp

 

To celebrate the release of Maid in Ireland, a new Fruupp compilation released on 24.07.20 by those good people at Esoteric Records, I include below a piece I did on the origins of Fruupp as part of the sleeve notes for the new CD. This is the first Fruupp complication to feature the remastered versions of the songs which were undertaken for the 2010 re-releases of the original four albums. The Dawn of Fruupp is included here by kind permission of Esoteric Records.

I met Vince McCusker in September 1964 when I moved from the Intermediate School in Magherafelt, Northern Ireland, fifty yards back towards the town centre, to the Technical College. Vince was from the neighbouring village of Maghera and he played guitar. At that point I was into Ray Charles, Hank William, Otis Redding, Beatles, Kinks, Them and Dylan. Vince was more of a Rolling Stones fan and into RnB. I imagine through our shared interest of both music and the beautiful girls of the Tech College we became mates and good friends. 

For the annual college Christmas concert, in 1965, we formed a wee group called Goggles Anonymous – we all wore glasses and Hedgehoppers Anonymous were enjoying the first and only flush of UK chart success at that time. I still can’t remember exactly my (non-performing) involvement in the group bar the fact that I owned a copy of the Beach Boys Sloop John B, the song Goggles Anonymous performed at the concert. Anyway, on the appointed night, I do remember a lot of screaming from the audience. Either the audience were screaming as they had seen people do on TV to the Beatles, or, they were screaming in horror at the harmonies. I’m prepared to give GA the benefit of the doubt on that one. 

Christmas over, Vince and three of his mates from Maghera and one of their mates from The Rainey School, formed a group called the Blues by Five. There were five of them and they played their version of the Blues.

Things were so simple in those days.

The Blues by Five’s material was based on the Them Again album, Otis Redding, Wilson Picket, Ray Charles and songs from a compilation called, Ireland’s Greatest Sounds. I went to hear the group. They were excellent musicians, had a great sound, and they had Paddy Shaw, one of the best singers I’ve ever witnessed live. The remaining Northern Irish singers in my Top 4 would have been: Paul DiVito (The Interns) Billy Brown (The Freshmen) and Van Morrison (Them).

The Blues by Five rehearsed a lot but didn’t play many gigs. Luckily enough a fine gentleman by the name Dixie Kerr lived two doors down from me. Dixie played saxophone in The Breakaways showband. So, I knocked on his door and asked if he could give the Blues by Five the relief spot at some of the dances The Breakaways were playing. Dixie being Dixie said, “Why of course.” 

The Blues by Five were delighted at the several bookings I’d secured for them and immediately appointed me as their manager. I was 15 years old at the time. The Blues by Five were to be Vince and my first steps in the music business. 

I left Magherafelt in Sept 1967 (quite literally) to head to London so that I’d be able to see the Beatles live on a weekly basis.

Or so I thought.

In those days it took a long while for the buzz on the biz to reach Ulster. I arrived at Euston Station only to discover the Beatles had stopped touring a few months previously. 

Not to worry, sure weren’t there lots of other groups to see and hear. Pretty soon I was a regular at the Marquee Club and writing a weekly music column for Belfast’s City Week which eventually became Thursday Magazine. 

Vince started to visit London and would always crash at my flat in Wimbledon. He’d work late into the night on a bunch of songs he was writing for a group he was thinking of forming back in Belfast.  

I thought these songs, Decision, Garden Lady, and Olde Tyme Future, were brilliant. Vince’s main concern was he felt that they might be a wee bit too progressive for the Irish Market.  

So, we hatched our plan. Vince would return to Belfast and form his new group. I would set up a few gigs for them in London and I would bring some managers and record companies down to see them. They, Fruupp, would get signed up, go on to fame and fortune and I’d happily continue with my writing. Sadly, it didn’t really happen that way and so, by default, I became the manager, the agent, the roadie, the sound engineer, the lyricist, the writer of the stories that linked the songs on stage, and… the last one to be paid.  

Fifty years later they’re selling more CDs than they ever did back in the day! (a clue to this phenomenon might just be that CDs didn’t come along until the mid-1980s!) 

Which all brings us nicely to our latest collection, Maid In Ireland. Maid in Ireland was a title we had picked and reserved for a live album, should we ever do one. And we did.  Well at least we recorded one. We recorded the band at the legendary Friars Aylesbury, on Sat 6^th December 1975. Sadly, the tapes, along with all my worldly possessions, were destroyed by a fire in my flat in Peckham the follow year.

I believe the title also covers this selection perfectly. Peter Farrelly’s wonderful Fruupp’s Face on the cover was ever present in everything we did. As it was when I was listening to the songs for this collection. 

Prince of Heaven is unique for two reasons in that this song, a synopsis if you will, of the story I wrote to be the basis for our third album, The Prince of Heaven’s Eyes, didn’t appear on the actual album. It is also the only Fruupp song written and composed by the four original members of the group. 

The idea for Sheba’s Song came from a news story I read in The Daily Mirror about a wild cat’s escape from a zoo. I just love what the band did with the chase and capture sections of the song. Musically it’s always been so visual to me. I’ve often wondered what rap artist Talib Kweli heard when he first came upon the track and decided to sample it for Soon the New Day, a line (taken from the original lyric) he used for his title. I found it very refreshing that Talib and his people were very generous to us with credits and publishing.    

“Another day begins the same 

The things you do you’ll do again.”  

Two lines from Ivan “Touche” Valley’s beautiful poem, which was the inspiration behind Vince’s song, Decision. I always found Vince’s music to be passionately visual and that he should have been writing music for films. Decision has to be included in any Fruupp collection as it really is the best of Fruupp 

Until the next time, 

stay safe. 

Cheers 

pc 

What's Happened to The Checkers

Here’s One I Prepared Earlier.

 

 

So, I have to apologise, for my lack of blogs in this space for a while now. It has nothing whatsoever to do with the lockdown. It has more to do with the last few pieces I have written for this space have ended up elsewhere. Mark Twain with a Martin G28 and I Can’t Dance both went to Hot Press Magazine. Writing a Crime Novel is Like Jumping off a Diving Board appeared on the Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine website and, The Genesis of the Abbey Road Graffiti appeared on the Irish Times website.

I promised myself that the next one would be for my own website. But then I discovered this piece I wrote in November 1997 BB. (BB as in Before Blogs.)

It concerns a visit I made, while I was clearly under the weather, to NYC. I’d been mugged in NYC (which I wrote about in Mugged in Manhattan Blues - a 2015 blog) but I was clearly also distracted on this visit.

Until the next one - which will be appearing very shortly, I promise, to celebrate the release of a new FRUUPP compilation CD by those very nice people at Esoteric Records - please stay safe. Anyway, here it is, exactly as it was written in November 1997.

Cheers

pc

 

 

What's happened to the Checkers?

 

 

 

I've been wandering around the streets of New York City this time, trying to figure out what's wrong. Yes, I am feeling a bit ill and, agreed, I'm missing a new love, back in London.  But I don't mean wrong in that way. I mean, what's wrong with New York City?  The smell is different. The street scents no longer gouging recklessly at the insides of your nostrils, while making your heart beat faster as you search in vain for that rare fresh air.  NYC now smells like a European city; no good, or bad, thing I think.

 

The street attitude is definitely still there, but no longer as threatening.  I was mugged in Times Square a few years ago on what was 'til then, one of my frequent visits to the city and, to be honest, I'd never felt ill at ease until that time.  Maybe it was because the musicians I was hanging out with were nice people and this was their city and they went out of their way to make me feel welcome.

 

Broadway's many cinemas seem to have been razed to the ground to make space for the likes of the Virgin Megastore and the Waldorf Hotel.  On the other end of the scale and the opposite side of Times Square, I see that Paul Simon, a very fine songwriter of the parish, has a musical, 'Capeman', opening very soon and I find myself making a mental note to try and blag a pre-release cassette of the music from a friend at the once elegant Warner Bros. This will have to wait a few days, until I visit the other side of this ginormous (an Ulster word combining the largeness of gigantic and the power of enormous) country in the City of Angels, a location now more favoured in my itinerary.

 

But back to New York City and what's wrong with it.  Even my trips to Coliseum Books and Colony Records were a let-down this time. At this point I should admit to you, normally, on reaching my hotel in Manhattan one can hear two thuds. One; my case hitting the floor and two; the door closing after me as I rush out of the hotel, high on adrenalin, to visit the aforementioned shops of words and music. And again, usually having a mental fight as to which one I'm going to visit first. This time it took me nearly forty-eight hours before heading in their direction, and in the end, although with good intentions, I didn't even manage to make one of them at all.

 

True, Coliseum Books had several titles I wanted to purchase but I decide my trip will be easier, luggage-wise, if I don't flex the plastic until I reach Hollywood, the movie capital of the world. My eye was caught by a few titles including another tasteless JFK expose, a true-crime book called Big Trouble - a Very big book at that, with 875 pages, and, the new Michael Connelly, Trunk Music, which I’m really looking forward to. In fact, my solitary purchase in Coliseum Books was an audio version of 'Wobegon Boy'. Audio Books in reality are not great for in-flight distraction, although I mostly purchase them thinking they are going to be exactly that and end up listening to them while walking about Regent's Park and Primrose Hill.

 

What else was there? You know, I can't recall now, but I do remember that there were at least half a dozen I resolved to purchase in Book Soup on Sunset Blvd and have my friend ship them back to me in London. I did, however, notice a couple of 'Conversations with God' (Vols 1 &  2). The author, and father of nine children (you'd think he would have at least created his very own set of apostles by going for the full dozen) Neale Donald Walsh does look like a chap who would have a conversation (several in fact) with God - good luck to him, is all I'd like to say. I searched for a new Robert James Waller (sadly there was no new volumes to be found) I do like his conversational style of writing.  I searched for 'I Love the Sound of Breaking Glass' and didn't find a copy, so I comforted myself with two thoughts. One, they were probably sold out and two, I now didn't have to embarrass myself in public by moving it to the front of the shelf!

 

Apart from that, the staff didn't seem as friendly as they appeared twenty years ago, but then the world is not as friendly a place as it was twenty years ago, so what are you going to do about it? Mope? In which case, I really do need to get out of the house a bit more. But you know, really, I think bookstores are places like doctors' surgeries; lawyers' offices; accountants' paying desks; dentists' waiting rooms; restaurants; hotels and undertakers' parlours where you need to be able to talk to the staff. Not the owners, just the staff.  The owners treat you like you're part of the whole wide world and not actually an individual.  No, you need to be able to be involved in more of an interface than the one which came over the Public Address system when I was in the shop.

 

'Would Mr. Johansson ... who is from Sweden,' then a pause for you to fill in your own snigger. 'Please come to the cash desk, where his wife,' another well placed pause for some more sniggering, 'is waiting for him! Thankyou!'

 

Was his wife Swedish? Had she forgotten what her husband looked like? Couldn't she go looking for him? Was she afraid she might find him in the dirty books section? Or worse still in the Jeffrey Archer section?

 

The final words I heard on placing my prized audio, 'Wobegon Boy' on the sales counter was, '29.95 plus tax.' Then, with the aid of a calculator, 'That will be thirty two dollars and forty two cents.' And that was it, well unless you count the additional words on the receipt as communication.

 

'Absolutely No Cash Refunds!!!!' (their exclamation marks not mine) 'Store credit with Sales receipt within one (1) month of purchase.'  And, 'I agree to pay the above total amount according to the card issuer agreement.' Yeah, and if I don't they'll give me back my money, but they can't can they? 'Absolutely No Cash Refunds!!!!' That was it, apart from, just in case you're interested, the fact that my sales assistant was in fact Clerk No. 1 and finally (I promise) 'Pub Overstock (Yellow Label) 10% Off. Thankyou!!!' (I think they were also probably suffering from a computer overstock of exclamation marks!)  'Please come again.'

 

Well after doing exactly that for just over half a lifetime, I'm hardly going to stop, am I? Assuming, that is of course, I come back to NYC at all.  Such thoughts of non-return fill my head as I take off in the general direction of Colony Records. Colony records is the very shop where I collected my original US Beatle vinyl, (very different from the UK releases) some of my Dylan non-catalogue releases and my mint Gilbert O'Sullivan 'Himself'', a genuine classic and the very heavy vinyl made me feel that the extortionate price I paid may have been justified after all. This list would, and surely does, run.  But it won't be added to on this trip. I'm not in the mood. I give it (the shop) a wide berth and I continue to wander around, filling up the time until my next meeting.

 

I decide to make my way up to Fifty-Eight Street and Avenue of the Americas. What a grand name for a street... Avenue of the Americas. Why couldn't O'Connell Street in Dublin be called, 'Eire Avenue'?' or Oxford Street in London be called 'The Street of England'. Mind you, there is a quaint street which borders Primrose Hill with Belsize Park Avenue called, 'England's Lane'. Lovely. Anyway, back to New York City, as I was saying I made my way up to 58th Street in search to a chemist.

 

I was not looking forward to my flight over America, a cold-cum-flu bug I'd had before leaving London had left me pretty blocked up. Landing at JFK had been anything but pleasant. So unpleasant I would have swapped five visits to the dentists to avoid it... let me tell you about dentists some time, soon, perhaps. I don't feel we know each other well enough yet) I literally thought my head was going to blow open. I sucked a sweet. When that didn't work, I sucked my thumb. When that didn't work, I yawned. When that didn't work I sucked another sweet.  On and on it went for an excruciating twenty seven and one half minutes; I think I counted every second of it. So to say I was not looking forward to my flight to Los Angeles is in fact something of an understatement.

 

I rang my friend in Los Angeles. He’s a very excellent manager of one of my clients to boot. I told him my problem. He thought about it and then recommended this herbal (plus) tea called something like 'Clear Head'.

 

'The only problem with it,' he explained via our inter-continental call, 'is it will make you a bit argy, a bit hyper, but it will definitely clear your head.'

 

I had a problem with that. Basically, I don't like taking medication of any kind because I don't trust what the meds are doing to the rest of your system to make one part of it feel better.  I know it doesn't make a lot of logical sense, but there you have it. I've been like that all my life and I'm less inclined, if anything, to change now.

 

'Okay, I hear you. There's this other thing I've just tried,' he continued. You see, there, in that one sentence you have the reason why I like the man so much. He is always the first person on the block to know about new things.  He turned me on to the Walkman, to Gameboy, to Rumpole and to fruit crate labels. I mean, the list really does go on and on but anyone of the above would have been more than enough for me.

 

'Yeah, there's this new thing they developed for astronauts that's just come on the market and they're called "Ear Planes".'

 

One thing you learn to do when you are desperate is not to laugh at your friends, besides in the fifteen years or so I'd known him he'd never let me down.

 

'Aha.' I tried to sound enthusiastic but it's hard you know, I mean "Ear Planes". Please? Come on.

 

'Yeah, they're like plastic things your put in your ears, just before taking off and they protect you from the change in pressure. Not all chemists have them.'

 

Now there's a surprise. This thought I kept to myself though as we discussed where I could get them. Basically with the help of the hotel concierge, one hour later, I enter Windsor Chemists and was heartened to find they have friendly, helpful staff. The assistant advises me that they do have "Ear Planes" and they do work. He'd used them three times (successfully) himself.  As I wait for him to fetch me three packets (hey, if they work that well they'll make great Christmas presents). A French man came up to address the other assistant who was equally friendly.

 

The French man explained he had a bad cold and with the sound of his voice and all his coughing and spluttering, I'm inclined to take his word for it and divert my gaze in the opposite direction.  That's a funny thing you know, well it's not funny really, more like strange, you know, how come people who work in chemists don't get every disease under the sun? They have to stand close to all these bug-infected people to discover the ailment and then, hopefully, find and sell them a cure. I wonder what sick leave is like for employees of chemists. So, the second assistant goes into this pitch on Mycinetes (sugar free lozenges). I mean I was prepared to believe they could do everything short of curing cancer. Hey, you know that's probably how chemists’ assistants stay healthy: they all take Mycinetes.  Good enough for chemist assistants, good enough for me! So, when my chap returns, I order a pack and a tube of Nivea Cream.

 

I didn't need Nivea Cream you have to understand but I happen to believe it is the wonder drug of our times.  I'm convinced if I could find a way of applying it to the inside of my (very sore) throat it would heal my ailment over-night, if not sooner.  So, a happier man, a much happier man, I depart the Chemist and continue my search to find out what's happened to New York City.

 

On the corner of the next block, I discover exactly what it is. In fact, I am very nearly run over by what it is not. I'd better explain, hadn't I? I was very nearly run over by a taxi, a New York taxi, but not the New York Taxi.  No, since my last visit, the famous Checker has been replaced by new Fords, Ford Crown Victorias to be exact. Still yellow, like the Checkers, and even though not one of them is yet a year old, they all have several dents about their frontage.

 

You can imagine the drivers in the car showrooms buying their new cabs, can't you? You can further imagine the John Cleese's Fawlty Towers' salesman wringing his hand in glee as he offers, "Wonderful vehicle, complete with the signature egg crate grill, powerful and efficient Continental Engine and don't forget the vital double rear, fold-down, jump seats. I can guarantee multiple bangs for your bucks with this particular model, Sir." "Yes, they're all lovely, but do you have one with a dent?" the buyer would ask. To which Basil Fawlty would manically reply, "No Sir, but just give me a minute while a fetch a hammer and I can add two dents for the price of one for you. Yes, here we go. And where exactly would you like the dents? How about here, Sir?" Smash, wallop. "Yes, that's it, that'll do great. I'll take that one please." the happy cabbie would grunt as he signed on the dotted line.

The Checker Marathon, to give it its full title, was manufactured from 1960 through to 1982. It was truly a head turning motor vehicle, but not head-turning in an Exorcist kind of way. No, not at all, but, alas, it will turn heads no more.  

 

The Checkers are all gone! 

Apparently, a few do remain venturing out only at night, but New York's second (to the Empire State Building) tourist attraction is gone and I'm absolutely gutted.  New York without the Checkers is like London without the black cabs; Dublin without a friendly greeting; Liverpool without the Beatles; Edinburgh without the castle; or, Morse without the Jaguar. A client and friend of mine, Loudon Wainwright III owned one, a Checker that is, and I suppose I'd become quite attached to the iconic vehicle. 

 

I also remember this one great Thanksgiving where The Roches borrowed Loudon's Checker to drive a bunch of us up to their parent’s house in Rochester for dinner. Everyone in the Checker, with the obvious exception of myself, was female and it was the first time I had experienced girls enjoying just a great, old, day out.  I couldn't work out if it was a sign of the times or merely the influence of the good old Checker. But now the Checker, Loudon's and New York's, were gone and it just wasn't, nor would ever would be the same.

 

I left New York City the following evening, happy and sad.  Happy because the "Ear Planes" worked perfectly and I could now tick a few friends off my Christmas present list. Sad because the yellow wonders were all gone. I wondered if they were gone for good, (that's a hell of a lot of cars to get rid of) or would public opinion force them back on to the street. The Louise Woodward case showed us just how powerful people-power has become. Will Checkers make a comeback in a few years’ time, appearing on the Letterman Show or on a U2 stage set? I don't know.  But I do know that their disappearance is one in a growing number of reasons why not to hurry back to New York City, Ear Planes or no Ear Planes.

                                                       

 

American Views *

 

* From the front of Taxi Cabs.

I’ve always loved all things American: the Lone Ranger & Tonto, Rawhide, Bronco Lane, Wagon Train, Geronimo, Mr Dillon, JFK, Hollywood, movies, Dylan, American dollars, Elvis Presley, the stars and stripes, The Doors, all-day breakfasts (particularly hash browns) and, of course, the American classic cars.

All those wonderful Cadillacs and the other classics, now they were a joy to the eye, weren’t they? Ford Mustangs; Chevys; Chryslers; Plymouth Roadrunners; Dodge Royal American Sedans; Lincoln Continentals; Corvette Stingrays; Pontiac Firebirds and Buicks - all items of beauty and all individual flagships of a never-to-be-forgotten era.  Sadly, very sadly, the majority of American cars have now been blanded into the one-design-suits-all models - much the same bland as we seen all over Europe. Trucks are the exception; the American trucks are still as majestic, eye-catching and individual as ever, while and the classic iconic yellow school buses just keeping on rolling along the length and breadth of my favourite country.

I recently visited America for a whistle-stop book tour, stopping off in New York, Washington (Bethesda & Arlington), Boston, Minneapolis, Seattle, Orange, Scottsdale, New Orleans, Houston and Austin. Yes lots of trains and buses and planes.  I was out there on the road just like Donald and Hilary, trying to win support from the American people. 

It’s definitely Trump Time in the USA at the moment.

On my travels I discovered taxi drivers really are the font of all knowledge. One driver told me that Bill and Hilary openly encouraged Donald to join the competition because they felt they could easily beat him. I tried to figure out how a taxi driver from Boston would know that Bill and Hilary Jones of Merthyr Tydfil, and members of the Cilsanws Golf Club, were always taking advantage of Bill’s younger cousin, Donald Jones, out on the golf course.

New York City born and bred, Donald Trump, billionaire, property developer, bearer of gravity-defying hair, on the other hand, is, it would appear, to blame for everything, everything that is, according to my taxi driver – this time the taxi driver on the way into Seattle from the airport. So taking his lead I also laid the blame at DT’s feet for Rory McIlroy and Man United’s current poor form and on how few the numbers of people who turned up at my bookstore event in New Orleans were. I can’t tell you how good it feels to have someone to blame for whatever is upsetting you, so thank you very much Mr Trump.

The prospect of Trump becoming the next USA president seems to be the current preoccupation in the whole of America. Hilary doesn’t seem to be making a connection with the American people on the street, nor with taxi drivers for that matter. One taxi driver confidently predicted that not only would Trump become president but that, when he did, he would pin a sheriff’s badge on his own shirt and ride off into the horizon to right the American wrongs. In lieu of the real Lone Ranger, Marshall Dillion, Ty Hardin, Roddy Yates (now there would have been a great US President) or, my own person favourite, Alf Tupper, the Tough of The Track, maybe DT will have to do. If Donald sets off on such an adventure I feel it would be very important that someone remind him that there are only a limited number of silvers bullets available.

“Not a lot of people know this,” my Seattle taxi driver started off confidently, sounding like a denim-clad Michael Caine, “but candidates who are way behind in the primaries, just before they drop out of the running, apparently go to the leading candidate and “invite” them to contribute to their campaign losses in order to confirm - or maybe even “persuade” would be a better word - the candidate behind in the polls, that they will drop out and maybe even, in some cases, endorse the leading candidate.” He also reckoned that Cruz was too desperate to win, to be a good president. “Can you imagine the lengths a desperate president might go to, to win some issue while in the White House? On top of which he turned up at one of his final rallies dressed in denim jeans!”

Supposedly large numbers of government staff will resign if Trump wins the presidency and (allegedly) an even greater number of American citizens are going to emigrate into the open, welcoming, arms of Canada. That particular cab driver cautioned me with, “let’s wait and see how many actually do.”

Hilary Clinton’s campaign reminds me a lot of the Bjorn Borg approach to his legendary tennis matches with John McEnroe, where Bjorn would never ever “win” any of the marathon competitions, it was more that he would just refuse to “lose” to his superior, but temperamental, opponent. A very effective ruse in that it gained the Swede a 50% success rate in their twenty-two meetings. But, you’d have to say, hardly a presidential quality.  

While on my stateside travels, I also picked up from another American taxi driver that three USA nuclear reactors are currently leaking; that the Euro is shortly about the crash, not due to, but certainly helped by the fact that, three Italian banks and one Austrian bank, are about to fold. Warming to his “doom” subject, he also predicted that the US dollar will be devalued this autumn (a.k.a. “fall”). On the positive side, he predicted Gold and Silver and Wheat will go through the roof and become the main commodities of trade measurement again.

Yet another taxi driver put forward the theory that Trump is “happening” just because ordinary decent people have come to the conclusion that politics doesn’t work for them anymore. He cited the fact that the leader of the Republican Party (allegedly Trump’s party this time around) said he wasn’t ready yet to endorse Trump. Everyone immediately realised that the subtext was, “We haven’t done a deal yet.” Trump floored the party leaders by implying he wasn’t going to do a deal, suggesting, at this stage at least, that the guard is changing. My taxi driver reckoned that Trump has come this far because he is suggesting he’s going to change everything about politics than needs changing and, maybe more importantly, he’s not in anyone’s pocket, meaning that he won’t have any favours to return should he get into office.  The minute he starts to do deals and/or accept endorsement is the day he will lose his support. My cab driver predicted that people are going to show up at the polling booths who have never bothered to vote before. More alarmingly he claimed that people are really going to take it onto the streets if they don’t feel that their man is getting a fair crack at it. As I was exiting the cab, pondering street riots, his parting shot was, “if you don’t believe that Trump will get in, then please just watch the audiences on the Jerry Springer Show, or the Maury Show, or any of the games shows on our television. They’re the same audiences that will take Trump to 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue.” 

“USA Literacy rates rise in the bad weather.” This snippet of wisdom was from a Russian taxi driver on the Orange airport run, “Really? How so?” I asked after I’d worked out what he was saying. “Don’t you see,” he continued after he decoded my own strong dialect, “that in the bad weather, the homeless pile into libraries and hide behind the great (as in physically big) tonnes so they’re not thrown out into the cold and damp.”

Talking about accents that reminds me, when ordering food in American restaurants it is important for me to remember that a) I have an Ulster accent and b) the subtle differences between the USA and UK version of English. I have an aversion to tomatoes and it’s so easy to get your order wrong in restaurants where they say “to-mate-toes” where as we (I) say “to-matt-oes.” So, invariably, my order arrives with the latter but no former, whatever it is… you know, “and hold the to-matt-oes, please” (where they translate what they think I’m saying with my to-matt-oes.” I’ve never been able to figure out what’s missing from my plate but as long as it’s not hash browns that are missing I’m okay. Having said that the cafeteria across the road from the Seattle book store does an amazing bean and ham broth.

My Taxi driver in Phoenix recommended that I beware of pick-pockets in New Orleans, my next city. The other cities to watch are: New York, Miami, parts of San Francisco, Oakland. But it’s interesting to note that not one American city figures in the Top Ten Cities in the world to beware of pick-pockets. While in New Orleans I tried to figure out if my lost crowd there had anything to do with the numerous graveyards I passed on the way in from the airport.

When I arrived in Austin, the taxi driver joyously advised me that just that very morning Uber and it’s 40,000 (yes 40,000 drivers, he claimed!) had been thrown out of the city by the mayor because they would not agree to their drivers been checked and fingerprinted or doing a test.  The following day it transpired that the mayor (unlike Trump) was negotiating.   

My personal prediction is that Donald Trump will become president, but the Trump University case will derail his presidency shortly thereafter.

Until the next time,

Cheers

pc

Three Gillians & a Couple of Jeans

In one of his many classics, Paul McCartney famously asked, “All the lonely people, where do they all come from?”

Well let’s see now. DAVID BUCHANAN is from Castlemartin in Mid-Ulster; MARY SKEFFINGTON is from Bath; JEAN SIMPSON and JEAN KERR – yes that’s the two Jeans - are childhood best friends from Matlock in Derbyshire; JOHN HARRISON is from Scotland. All are in their late teens - so late, in fact, that they will soon leave them and (hopefully) their innocence behind. 

I started work on this book a long time ago, as was the case with the other two books in what has turned out to be The Castlemartin Trilogy. The first two were located in Castlemartin, a fictitious village, located about four miles away from (the very real) Magherafelt, on the shores of Lough Neagh in Northern Ireland. All three books are set in the mid-1960s. In One of Our Jeans Is Missing, however, David Buchanan, the main character, moves from Castlemartin to London and… well perhaps there’s a wee bit of: you can take the man out of Ulster but you can never take Ulster out of the man.    

David meets up with Mary, John, Jean and Jean and they start to enjoy each other, and music, and each other a bit more, and then one of them disappears. At least two of remaining quartet start to consider what might be the perfect murder.

I had the title from the get-go for this book. This isn’t always the case for me. Tanita Tikaram an artist I was managing at the time visited China for a holiday. She took her two best friends with her. Both of her friends were (in fact still are) called Gillian.  One day Tanita telephoned me from China in a panic. 

“One of our Gillians is missing,” she gushed.

I laughed. In my defence I laughed, not so much at the fact that one of her best friends was missing in a foreign land, but more at the way she had put it. 

“No PC,” Tanita pleaded, “she’s seriously missing!” 

When I set the phone down and had got D.I. Christy Kennedy, Inspector Starrett and McCusker, on the missing Gillians case, I started to think that ‘seriously missing’ - as opposed to ‘casually missing,’ or even just, ‘missing’ - would be a great title for a book, but for some reason or other when it came time to write it up in my wee ideas book I only wrote, ‘One of our Gillians is missing.’ 

Sometime later when I had the idea for this story of David Buchanan and his four fellow teenage exiles in 1960s’ London, the title presented itself to me at pretty much the same time. In fact the original working title for the book was, One of Our Gillians is Missing. Then I started to date a lady called Gillian (yet another one) for a while, and so in order to protect the three Gillians I changed the title to One of Our Jeans is Missing a.k.a. OOOJim (pronounced ‘Oh Jim!’  

Apart from being exiled from the home you grew up in, another of the main themes of the story is how music, big pieces of music, become very important as soundtracks to parts of our lives. I suppose the other important point to mention here is that we are all equally passionate about the music we dislike as we are about the music we love. A lot of the music references in the book – Dylan,  John Lee Hooker, The Spencer Davies Group, Taste and Stevie Winwood – have all had major influences in my life and, along with quite a few other artists, helped me during my move from Ulster to London in 1967. Yes, music certainly helped me deal with the potentially debilitating illness known as homesickness. Even today every time I listen to Neil Diamond’s classic, I Am… I Said, I can still recall vividly the intensity of the helplessness of the bed-sitter days. With hindsight if I had been a doctor I would have prescribed a twice weekly listening session of I Am… I Said, one or Mr Diamond’s most soulful statements.  Just to know that others had suffered and where suffering from your ailment could be a comfort.  With the benefit of that same hindsight I would probably add a thrice weekly visit from Jean Simpson into the potent healing mix. Hopefully you’ll see what I mean should you visit the pages of One Of Our Jeans Is Missing.  

This is my first title to be published by Fahrenheit Press.  I found main man Chris McVeigh refreshingly straightforward to deal with.  His view seemed to be that if he read the book and liked it (and assuming that I could spell Fahrenheit) he would publish it without any publisher interference, fuss or delay.  His only other observation was, “If you want to be treated like a delicate little snowflake we're definitely NOT the publisher for you - try Faber & Faber, they're lovely.”  That was certainly good enough for me. 

That's it until the next time. Next one soon.

Cheers

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