RAY SARGE Issue #2

From the fuck thicket onward we stumble forward, aching longwise wondering, wandering toward what might look like we deserve it. What flies up in front of us? What smuggles its snout into us? What ignores our searching for IT, or, if not ignores seeks to smoosh it underfoot and mash it into bloody sustenance? There can be answers: and are.

---

Childhood is a piece of ground bathed in water, with little paper boats floating on it. Sometimes, the boats turn into scorpions. Then life dies, poisoned, from one moment to the next.
The poison is in each corolla, as the earth, is in the sun. At night, the earth is left to itself, but, happily, people are asleep. In their sleep, they are involnerable
The poison is the dream. -- Edmond Jabès, The Book of Questions

happy v's

V-day is OK... I'm just generally not a fan.

Valentines Special: February 14th 2008 Mix

This is a mix I sent to a girl last year for Valentines Day. It worked.

1. Let’s Kiss – Beat Happening
2. Have I the Right – The Honeycombs
3. Two Headed Boy – Neutral Milk Hotel
4. The Fool – Neutral Milk Hotel
5. Never Let Go – Tom Waits
6. Love – John Lennon
7. Petiatil Cx Htdui – Aphex Twin
8. Because – The Beatles
9. Honey Bee (Lets Fly to Mars) – Grinderman
10. Ramparts – John Frusciante
11. Sunshine – Handsome Boy Modeling School
12. Book of the Month – Lovage
13. How Does It Make You Feel? – Air
14. Oh My Dear (Falling in Love) – Ween
15. Butterfly – Mason Jennings
16. Sweet Thing – Van Morrison
17. Yearnin’ – The Black Keys
18. Haven’t You Heard – Jeff Buckley
19. Perfect Day – Lou Reed
20. I Wanna Make It Wit Chu – Desert Sessions
21. Be My Wife – David Bowie
22. A Warm Place – Nine Inch Nails
23. Digital Love – Daft Punk
24. We Were Born Mutants Again with Leafling – Of Montreal

126mb, Enjoy

Outside In - A Tribute To John Martyn

John Martyn has died. A tragedy for his friends and family, as well as those fans devoted to his music. People like me who have lived inside of the sounds he made for so long now. Like many others, I have read the obituaries and wondered how many of the people writing them had actually heard any of the man's music. He certainly hadn't been heard by as many people as his astonishing music deserved. There are many reasons for this, but one predominant one I am sure of is that John's music is impossible to pigeon-hole in an industry, a world really, where pigeon-holing seems to be paramount for some stupid reason. Many of the articles I have read described him as a folk singer/songwriter. That is like saying Hitler was a house painter. It is part of the picture, but only part. In my opinion, the last album he made that could be said to be totally a folk album was his second, 'The Tumbler' which came out in 1968. Still, that is how the press tagged him, that is how Amazon.com categorize him. Just a cursory glance at some of his influences, such as Scottish singer Hamish Imlach, innovative guitarist Davey Graham or jazz man Pharoah Saunders shows that John's musical make-up was complex from the start.

If we need to find the seeds of John Martyn's music in the music of someone else, then Davey Graham is a good place to start. Graham had started as a folk and blues guitarist, but by the mid sixties was experimenting with musical styles from around the globe, mixing and matching as he went, long before the term 'World Music' had been coined. Jazz and blues and Celtic themes collided with Indian music, all underpinned by the stand up bass of one Danny Thompson. Graham, who himself sadly passed away just before Christmas, perhaps helped to open up a world of possibilities to a young John Martyn, already establishing himself on the London folk scene revolving around 'Les Cousins' club in the late sixties. Martyn was signed to Island records, a label initially aimed at releasing ska and reggae. Indeed, he was the first white artist on the imprint, although Fairport Convention, Nick Drake, Traffic and Free would soon follow.

His first two albums could indeed be classified as folk, mostly gentle hippy dippy stuff about 'Butterflies wings and lots of nice things' but displaying an already eclectic acoustic guitar technique, exemplified by the instrumental 'Seven Black Roses' which combines a traditional sounding folk tune with blues style finger picking. The next two albums were collaborations with his wife Beverley. her songs have a jazzy feel whilst on some of John's songs there is already a veering away from what most people saw as folk music. he experiments with a band sound, indeed on 'Stormbringer', Levon Helm from the Band is present, and on songs like 'Would You Believe' from 'The Road To Ruin' he stretches out in an almost hypnotic way that suggests musical paths he wouldn't pursue fully till much later on in his career. A recording I have heard of a John Martyn gig recorded for the BBC between 'Road To Ruin' and his next solo record, .Bless The Weather' has a version of 'Would You Believe' that features experimentation with guitar effects that would blossom into his trade-mark echoplex guitar technique.

The next solo album, 'Bless The Weather showed Martyn's developing guitar technique on 'Glistening Glyndebourne' while his songwriting is on display throughout the album. It was the next release, 'Solid Air' which gave him a taste of commercial success. The bass of Danny Thompson is dominant, the songs follow a similar pattern to 'Bless The Weather' and in some cases have a harder edge. The echoplex guitar is fully featured on 'I'd rather Be The Devil', an adaptation of an old Skip James blues that features an intensely rhythmic and aggressive performance from John Martyn. 'Solid Air' itself, a song about Martyn's friend Nick Drake, has a smokey jazzy quality, but is like much of the album, very accessible. Perhaps he suffered from this in the same way Neil Young did with 'Harvest'. There would always be those who couldn't accept Young's Crazy Horse stuff and yearned for the earlier 'easier' material. So too with John. Within a year of 'Solid Air', 'Inside Out' had been released. This is the album I would recommend above all others. It is experimental, edgy, very jazzy, a narcotic haze permeating much of the vocals. The track 'Outside In' sees Martyn and his echoplex driven groove in Pharoah Saunders territory. This album is beautiful the way Mogwai is beautiful, it defies much explanation so I won't try and give any more. Thing is, whatever it is, another 'Solid Air' is what it wasn't. It wasn't quite what the office worker weekend hippies were looking for. It was just what I wanted though!



I saw him live around this time. A cheeky chappie blagging joints from the audience, but totally involved in the music once it began. When he used the echoplex, he sounded like a whole band, notes swirling round the room. The songs cut through me, as did the playing. I hadn't heard anything quite like it, yet through all this, he remained this jolly bloke onstage. It was like if your mate from the pub was incredibly talented as well as being a drunken sot! In all the times I saw him play, I was never really disappointed. I could keep on through the albums, 'Sunday's Child' 'Live At Leeds' (essential, that one), 'One World' and on, but if you are at all interested by any of this, you will go out and discover this stuff for yourself.

Martyn kept on releasing albums, I kept buying them, seeing the tour every year. By the early 80s, the acoustic guitar was mostly put away, he toured with an electric band. I drifted away from his music for around ten years. Not great years for him or me, actually, although I never gave up listening to the records of his that I loved. By the late 90s, I was running a website for my other musical hero, Peter Green, and had begun to look for John martyn material again. This was the decade of the email, and I got in touch online with a guy called John Hillarby who was putting a tribute website for John together. We swapped tapes as fans do, and through John I got to see John Martyn live many times again, even getting to meet him a few times. this was an older, much heavier man, and it was clear that his lifestyle over the years had affected the way he was now. Performances could be a little erratic at this stage, I remember one show John Hillarby and I saw at Shepherd's Bush Empire where John was a little worse for wear, but his voice still moved me to tears that night as it had done so often in the past, his guitar playing still cut through the sea of shit in which so many of his musical contemporaries still swim. There were truly magical shows too, like his appearance at the 'Drifting' Festival at the Queen Elizabeth Hall on London's South Bank. The South Bank had a reputation for putting on festivals with dodgy concepts and managing to tie whoever was good and available or on tour at the time into the event. This night was a double bill, with Bill Nelson, an improvising guitarist. Nelson had played an entertaining set, backed by tapes he had made that day, and with a backdrop of movies Film students had made that day inspired by the backing tapes. After the interval, the lights went up on stage and there was John Martyn and band sitting around reading magazines. After about two or three minutes, Martyn just said, "I'm sorry about that, we're just all drifting!" He proceeded to read out the backstage fire regulations (which were extremely funny" and eventually deliver a set so good that I was horse from cheering so much. At this stage he had Arrun Ahmun on drums, and his trip-hop rhythms were just what Martyn needed to expand his numbers onstage.

A few years earlier, he had released an album called "And" where the trip-hop element was fully explored. This album in particular, and his career in genera l had been a big influence on Beth Gibbons of Portishead, and when he later covered 'Glory Box' it seemed fitting somehow. There were a couple of more albums, including the last studio effort, 'On the Cobbles', an attempt by producer Jim Tullio to recreate the 'Solid Air' kind of vibe. John allegedly hated it, refusing to play much from it on stage, but some fans loved it. It does have some charm, but I prefer Martyn's music when it is hard edged and challenging such as the mighty 'My Creator' from the previous album, 'Glasgow Walker.' I learned today that song was played during the memorial service for him in Ireland on february 8th. Quite right too.

In later years, John Martyn had had some financial problems, he had to have a leg amputated, and life was harder than it should of been for a musician of his talent. Voiceprint records did do an excellent job of releasing many live shows and rarities that came to light, many from the collections of the various fans who followed Martyn through the years. Do we need 18 versions of 'Outside In' for instance? Need maybe isn't the word, but I guarantee there will be a different element in each performance which keeps it interesting. I was going to post some mp3s at one point, but no, go and explore the amazing canon of work he has left. Youtube videos are a good place to start, as is johnmartyn.com, still run by my friend John Hillarby. As for albums, my favorites are 'Bless The Weather', 'Outside In' 'Live At Leeds', 'One World', 'Grace & Danger', 'And', and 'The Church With One Bell' and of the live albums, there are a couple with Danny Thompson from the late 80s which are very wonderful. To start with though, I would suggest 'Ain't No Saint', a four CD retrospective of his 40 year career which features some classic yet not always obvious selections, plus much unreleased material from all eras that in some strange way seems to sum up his genius better than anything else I can think of. I couldn't imagine life without this man's music, it is a fucking tragedy that he will not be making any more, (although I have to believe there is lots to hear that hasn't been released yet) but at least what is out there is available to be explored. John Martyn was never an easy option, but the best options never are.

Pucker up, you sucker.

These cookies were something delicious.

Escape to Hell Mixtape

I know the title of this mix sounds like the title of a early 90's extreme sports video, but I thought it fit with the kind of sinister/anti-religous tone it has.  I would like to point out that the cover art is by Stephen Gammell, who among millions of other things, illustrated SCARY STORIES TO TELL IN THE DARK. His illustrations have stuck in my mind since i was about 5. Without further ado, here we go:

1. Religion I - Public Image Ltd.
2. The Second Sitting for the Last Supper - 10cc
3. At the Edge of the Wood - Dead Meadow
4. The whores Hustke and the Hustlers Whore - PJ Harvey
5. Young Men Dead - The Black Angels
6. Tach Piano/Paris - Triumph of Lethargy Skinned Alive to Death
7. 11th Ave. Freakout Pt. 2 - Odd Nosdam featuring Mike Patton
8. Verbal (Topo Gigio Remix) - Amon Tobin
9. 10th Ave. Freakout - Fog
10. Chronological Disorder - 90 Day Men
11. Scotland's Shame - Mogwai
12. Like a Mirror - Morphine
13. 1963 - Brazzaville
14. The Quim Adjuster - Golden
15. Andy Warhol - David Bowie
16. The Ballad of Jody Frosty - Masters of Reality
17. Badd - Richard Cheese

132mb, Enjoy

Night Time Sweat Mixtape

This is one for the nights where you need something for the background. Its 2 and 1/2 hours long so you dont have to be messin' with the stereo for awhile.

1. Elegant Bird – Yoshimi and Yuka
2. Pareidolia – Foetus
3. Maritime (Mike Patton Remix) – Isis
4. Death is the Road to Awe – Clint Mansell w/ The Kronos Quartet and Mogwai
5. Na Na Na – The Knife
6. Hallelujah – Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds
7. Ear – Mugison
8. A Punch-Up at a Wedding – Radiohead
9. You Beautiful Bastard – The Sea and Cake
10. On a Neck, On a Spit – Grizzly Bear
11. Montreal – Ataxia
12. Turquoise Hexagon Sun – Boards of Canada
13. Ever Since WW1 – Team Sleep
14. Daily Living – Kaada
15. Theme from “Behind the Curtain” – Skalpel
16. Coda Maestoso in F (Flat) Minor – Earth
17. 09-15-00 (Part Two) – Godspeed You! Black Emperor
18. Flood (Part 2) – boris
19. Alone and Unaware….. – Red Sparowes
20. A Warm Place – Nine Inch Nails
21. Rhubarb – Aphex Twin
22. Captain – Ween
23. The Sinking Belle (Blue Sheep) – SunnO))) & Boris
24. So Long, Lonesome – Explosions in the Sky
25. Mannequin Hand Trapdoor – Boom Bip f. Doseone

197mb, Enjoy

RAY SARGE Issue #1

For a time now then ever, I have would did and put together a thought of a sequence of stuff I thought Yes! Yes! to and sighed in satisfaction after. So much it was like Whoa, I cannot. But yes, I had the always chance and here it can be, and worthy to give thanks for. An opportunity always for an expression not so full of AIDS and crusty cum used tampons and abortion parts. A time is always for a thing that a thing that was not a thing would not believe to be a thing should say, which is: HERE IS A GOODNESS.


PART ONE:

In a little while you will be alone in shoreless space, to wander its limitless solitudes without friend or comrade forever--for you will remain a thought, the only existent thought, and by your nature inextinguishable, indestructible. But I, your poor servant, have revealed you to yourself and set you free. Dream other dreams, and better!...You perceive, now, that these things are all impossible except in a dream. You perceive that they are pure and puerile insanities, the silly creations of an imagination that is not conscious of its freaks - in a word, that they are a dream, and you the maker of it. The dream-marks are all present; you should have recognized them earlier. It is true, that which I have revealed to you; there is no God, no universe, no human race, no earthly life, no heaven, no hell. It is all a dream - a grotesque and foolish dream. Nothing exists but you. And you are but a thought - a vagrant thought, a useless thought, a homeless thought, wandering forlorn among the empty eternities! -- Mark Twain, No. 44, The Mysterious Stranger

PART TWO:

And wild beasts shall rest there
And owls shall answer one another there
And the hairy ones shall dance there
And sirens in the temples of pleasure
-- Isiah 13, 21-22

PART THREE:

When I go into my psyche, at a certain point I meet a very hostile, very strong force. It’s as definite as somebody attacking me in a bar. We usually come to a standoff, but I don’t think that I’m necessarily winning or losing […]. Listen, baby, I’ve been coping with this for so many years. I know this invasion gets in. As soon as you get close to something important, that’s when you feel this invasion, and that’s the way you know there’s something there. I’ve felt myself just marched up like a puppy to go and do something that would get me insulted or humiliated. I was not in control […]. There are all degrees of possession. It happens all the time. What you have to do is confront the possession. You can do that only when you’ve wiped out the words. You don’t argue […]. You have to let it wash through. This is difficult, difficult; but I’ll tell you one thing: You detach yourself and allow this to wash through, to go through instead of trying to oppose, which you can’t do […]. The more you pull yourself together the further apart you get. You have to learn to let the thing pass through. I am a man of the world; I understand these things. They happen to all of us. All you have to do is understand them or see them for what they are, that’s all. -- William Burroughs, A Report From the Bunker

PART FOUR:

Full fathom five thy father lies;
Of his bones are coral made;
Those are pearls that were his eyes;
Nothing of him that doth fade,
But doth suffer a sea of change
Into something rich and strange.
-- Shakespeare, The Tempest

Burnside Bridge Crack Pipe Mixtape

I think the tracklist speaks for itself. Starts at one place, ends at another. Rockin' for most of it, silly at the end. I tend to use this for my morning commute to work but someone else might find it good for something other than that. I miss Portland.

1. Methamphetamine Blues – Mark Lanegan Band
2. Black Wings – Tom Waits
3. History Song – The Good, The Bad, and the Queen
4. Hitting a Wall – Fog
5. Ladyboys Night at the Cultural Relativism Saloon – Farmers Market
6. Gipsy Threat – Ratatat
7. Suicide is my Folk Music – David Scott Stone
8. Helter Skelter – The Beatles
9. Winds with Hands – Pelican
10. Booby Trap – godheadsilo
11. Reines Herz – Popol Vuh
12. Endless – Fennesz
13. Sweet Relief of Revenge – Ink & Dagger
14. Bright Lights – Black Mountain
15. LAX – Hot Snakes
16. Arc Arsenal – At the Drive-In
17. A Dumb Month – Bumps
18. Battle Damage Assessment and Repair/White Flag Surrender/Wake Me Up in Heaven – General Patton vs. The X-Ecutioners
19. General Hospital – Dr. Octagon
20. Now You Know – Niko & Dj Babu
21. Bat Wings – 8-Bit
22. I Can’t Wait – Ol Dirty Bastard
23. Fury Road – Robert Rodriquez

144mb, Enjoy

Mother London

Since Sledg has invited me to contribute here, I thought it only fitting to dedicate my first entry to him. I know he plans escaping LA to get back to Portland in the not so distant future, so here is a mix (full of old man music I am afraid) about the sprawling metropolis I escaped from yet miss every minute of every day...London.

I have been away from it now for almost five years, but had lived most of my life there up to that point. After all that time in a city of 8 million people plus, my current life in a small agricultural town in California's Central Valley is vastly different. I miss London to be sure, the city is in my blood, but it is only since I left that I have realised how crazy, dangerous and destructive life in such a place can be. If you do the transition the other way, from small town to behemoth as Sledg did, then you are bound to see the scary shit more clearly. For much of the time I was too busy living to notice the insanity going on around me. Now I can look back at the madness with a heady mixture of relief and nostalgia. I am a big city boy at heart, the pulse of London ran in time WITH my own for so many years, and I can't help looking back with more affection than I am sure Sledg has for LA. So here is my anecdote heavy homage to my home town. If LA is the city of angels and New York is the city that never sleeps, London is the city that often sleeps with it's best friend's wife and wakes up with a huge hangover and cold take away food stuck to the mattress. I give you Johnny Luddite's London...

1. WATERLOO SUNSET - THE KINKS  (3:17) (Something Else By The Kinks)

I was brought up in a fairly leafy suburb to the North of London called Finchley. Although we were less than ten miles from the center of the city, visits to "London" were regarded as special treats, Sunday bus rides to Oxford Street, vacation time trips to museums, exhibitions, riverboat trips, etc. There is a sense of wonder in Ray Davies song which when all said and done is about a very grimy not so pretty part of London that I have always identified with. It matches how I felt on these trips. 

2. CAN'T EXPLAIN - THE WHO (2:08) (Meaty, Beaty, Big and Bouncy)

Sunday afternoons when I was a kid often meant an 11 mile bus trip through London to see my Grandmother in Fulham, right round the corner from Chelsea football ground. This was the sixties, and on that journey on the 28 bus, I saw a fairly representative cross section of London as it was at the time. We would leave Golders Green with it's trees and large houses, through West Hampstead, one of the bastions of the British blues boom. I remember seeing "Clapton is God" written on a railway bridge and wondering what his first name was. Surely not something as silly as Eric? The bus carried on through a predominantly Irish Catholic area where church collections famously featured two plates, one for the church, one for Sinn Fein. Then the bus would go through Notting Hill Gate. In those days before Julia Roberts and Hugh Grant ruined it for everyone, much of the area was a West Indian ghetto. Even as a kid, some of these streets looked dangerous yet exciting. Within a few years, Britain would have it's first race riots here, just a mile or so from posh Kensington, the buses next call. I would stare at the fancy stores such as the boutique Biba's where The New York Dolls would make their London debut. Then we would be in Fulham, and a strange couple of hours with my creepy Gran. Her nephew Nigel lived there as well, and he was alright. He had a job changing the records in juke boxes and he would always take my sister and I into his room, play us records he had brought home, and give us a few to take home with us. He was a rocker, into the Stones, Elvis, the Everleys, all the old school stuff, while my sister was a mod, perched on the back of her boyfriends Lambretta whenever my dad wasn't watching. The Who, the Kinks, the Small Faces, they were the mod bands she followed, and so the first ones I was exposed to.

3. LAZY SUNDAY - THE SMALL FACES (3:06) (Ogden's Nut Gone Flake)

So many English bands had these strange American accents when they sang, but not the Small Faces. Vocalist Stevie Marriott had this cheeky cockney chappie persona that fitted my young adolescent view of what I perceived a true Londoner to be.  Add that to the slightly laboured psychedelia of their later work and we have a uniquely sixties London sound. "Hello Mrs Brown, How's your Bert's lumbago? Mustn't grumble." Years later, i saw Marriott on the way down when he used to play gigs at the Torrington pub in Finchley to cover that days coke. He would say things like  "Hello mates. Why would you leave your Sunday dinners to come and see a little cunt like me then?" The answer to that was that on a good day he could still play "All Or Nothing" like he meant it.

4. MOTHER GOOSE - JETHRO TULL (3:53) (Aqualung)

A lot of my teenage mad dog days happened in Hampstead Village and Highgate Village. These were affluent conurbations either side of Hampstead Heath, a large area of semi wild parkland to the north of Central London. Of course they are not real villages, rather they are expensive tracts of real estate full of arty farty folk, overpriced bars and shops, Swedish Au Pairs and in the 70s, my friends and I. Jethro Tull's Aqualung album was set in around Hampstead and Highgate and this song seems to capture the fun and the falseness of the place better than I ever could.

5. ANARCHY IN THE UK - THE SEX PISTOLS (3:31) (Never Mind The Bollocks...)

The music press always spoke of 1977 as the 'Summer Of Punk', but to me the scene was already decaying by then. There is a school of thought that UK punk died the moment The damned released "New Rose" as a single and condemned it to being just another sub genre of rock for the music biz to market the hell out of. One day I was loitering around the West End with a few others when we spotted Sid Vicious. With amazing banality, we decided to follow him along Oxford Street. I don't know what we were expecting, maybe for him to murder a group of school children or bite the head off of a live chicken or something. As it was, he chewed a little gum and went to a management office in the part of Soho known as 'Tinpan'. What lives we led!

6. LONDON CALLING - THE CLASH (3:23) (London Calling)

London was a pretty dangerous place in the 70s. Rising crime, soccer hooliganism, the constant threat of IRA bombs, and also the unrest caused by the National Front, presumed to be a racist Nazi organisation that was much loved by skinheads and other bastards. People like me turned up at anti racist rallies and marches because, yeah, we did hate those clowns, but to be honest it had as much to do with the fun of it, the bands that played, the chance of a fight, all kinds of things. One Sunday march led through London's East End, once a Jewish ghetto and latterly the home of London's Bengali and Bangla Deshi communities. I had been up most of the night before, up early, and by the time we got to Victoria Park, where the post march gig was being held, I was ready to fall asleep, which I promptly did. I woke up with what I can only describe as a catastrophic shock. We were towards the back of the park, I was propped up against a tree. Behind me was a truck and on the back the reggae band Steel Plus had set up. The first few chords of their signature tune, "Klu Klux Klan" almost sent me up to the uppermost tree branches! By the time my heart returned to almost normal, the Clash had taken to the stage, delivering the finest rock set I have ever heard in my life. 

7. NIGHT BOAT TO CAIRO - MADNESS (3:31) (One Step Beyond...)

Madness, the Nutty Boys from Camden Town. Part ska band, part music hall act. Round about 1980, just before Christmas, I was with some old friends eating at George Tilley's "Ruby In The Dust" diner on Camden High St. We were all going on to a costume party later, I was dressed as a thirties gangster, but then I liked dressing like that anyway. The diner was pretty small, we were all gathered on a long table on one side of the place, while on the other side there was a stag party for Suggs, lead singer of Madness. The whole band was there, singing along to tapes of old Beatles stuff. After much eating and much more drinking, one of the nutty boys asked if we could sing some shitty songs. Immediately we went into a rendition of 'Madness, madness, they call it madness' at which point a food fight of epic proportions followed. Camden wasn't exactly the safest place to be at night if you were wandering the streets, but for that night where we were the most you were going to come away with was some custard and mashed potato on your forehead.

8. DOWN IN THE TUBE STATION AT MIDNIGHT - THE JAM (4:03) (All Mod Cons)

Big cities spawn violence. No doubt about it, London, or at least parts of it, have been rough to live in, work near or pass through. I had my pocket pinched on the tube, I had a confrontation like the one in the song at Old Street Tube station that ended badly for me. I've seen a guy get his eye gouged out in a glassing, other stuff. That last incident took place in my safe home suburb of Finchley. Islington, where I went to college in the 90's is the Murder capital of Britain. But, all told, I felt safe in London because it was my city, the place I had been born to. I know realise that to some extent that confidence was misplaced, but at the time I had this misguided notion that London would protect me somehow.

9. TOWERS OF LONDON - XTC (5:24) (The Black Sea)

London is not the most beautiful city on earth, but I could and did walk for hours and hours soaking up the architecture, the feel of it's mean and often soggy streets. I liked walking around seedy areas such as Soho as much as the more touristy places. Grey Victorian palaces of inconsideratilon bordered by trees, canal tow paths, the historical blending with the hysterical by the river Thames. I loved walking along the South Bank from Embankment tube station, over the footbridge, along past the Festival Hall, National Theater, etc all the way down to the recreation of Shakespeares Globe. Elizabethan London fascinated me, the idea that in some ways London life then was as it is now, albeit with slightly less poo and piss being thrown out of windows and a distinct lack of bear baiting. I would walk round the Tower Of London on the North side of the Thames and compile lists in my head of the people I would like to imprison there. I can still remember such lists, and they are being added to all the time. Be warned my friends.

10. CEMETARIES OF LONDON - COLDPLAY (3:21) (Viva La Vida)

I used to spend hours wandering round some of the more interesting cemetaries in London. the most famous is probably Highgate Cemetary. The older more decaying section is a spooky yet wonderfully peaceful place full of fallen monuments, overgrown shrubbery and bird and wildlife unique to that environment. I also loved to spend time in Marylebone cemetary in Finchley. It is the final resting place of Little Tich, a music hall performer in the early 20th century whose act comprised of using an amazingly long pair of shoes as stilts. There is ancient film of this around. A life-size carving of his shoes can be found on his grave-site. My best friend and my Mum and Dad are sadly there too, so it is a special place for me.

11. FUCK OFF AND DIE - THE METEORS (2:59) (Psycho Down)

You don't realise what an unfriendly place London can be till you spend some time somewhere else. I worked in Birmingham for a while, not a place especially known for it's hospitality, yet I couldn't help but notice that if strangers spoke to you, it wasn't just to insult you, get directions or sell you drugs. Some folk would actually say hello, shop keepers would say thank-you. It was very strange, not the London way at all. In London the best policy seems to be to ignore whatever is happening around you in the hope that whatever it is doesn't happen to you. Cheerful welcoming cockneys singing jovial tunes and inviting you down to the old Bull & Bush might happen in Thirties movies but I never saw it. Back in the early sixties my Mum was out with my Grandma when the old lady had what appeared to be a stroke. Sher was on the ground and my Mum was desperately looking for someone to help. Cars and pedestrians ignored her for over an hour. The same kind of people who would be offended by the title of this song by North London's very own kings of psychobilly would probably be the most likely ones to ignore a call for help like the one my Mum made that day. Funny old world isn't it.

12. LONDON DUNGEON - THE MISFITS (2:27) (The Necronomicon)

There is of course a dark underbelly to just about every place there is, it is just that London's was darker and grosser than most. Whatever you wanted was out there if you wanted it, as was a lot of stuff you didn't want. I walked into a pub called The Prince William with a girl friend one time. I knew it was a gay pub but I have to admit I was shocked by the sight of over 70's S&M leatherboys eyeing up the new meat. Once it registered that was me I was more uncomfortable than a very uncomfortable thing. It was at this point that Carol, the girl I was with, spotted a portrait of H.R.H Elizabeth II. "Oh look, it's the Queen" she yelped. I swear that every soul in that place turned round in recognition.

13. JACK THE RIPPER - MOTORHEAD (4:39) (March Or Die)

If the dark flabby underbelly we speak of is that of the past, then of course we become ultra fascinated with it. Novelist Patricia Cornwall has become one of the latest scribes to offer a published solution to the Jack The Ripper murders. there are loads of old unsolved murders in Richmond, VA or anywhere else for that matter, but there isn't the potential readership there that there is for a book about old Jack. All the elements are there. Olde London Town, fog, dead prostitutes, possible Royal involvement. London has great history, brilliant history, but come on people, this is not it! You can go and see the Guildhall, pretty much as it was the day Shakespeare premiered "Twelfth Night" there, you can see Roman ruins, the British Museum has all the swag from hundreds of years of plundering, tons of good stuff. The British Library reading room has items that will make you cry tears of joy if you are at all human like Lennon's hand written lyrics to 'In My Life", sheet music penned by the hands of Bach, Mozart, Beethoven  and Handel. They have Shakespeare's signature there for goodness sake. But there will still be more people pouring to the fictional home of the equally fictional Sherlock Holmes, folk who want to walk where the Ripper walked and generally get their London experience from Hollywood rather than London itself. Shame.

14. SEX & DRUGS & ROCK & ROLL - IAN DRURY (3:21) (New Boots & Panties)

In the many years I lived there, London nightlife was always evolving in some way. there were constants like theater-land, the food and flavor of China Town and always some kind of clubbing. Everything from 70s disco to Goth haunts like the Thursday night Kitcat club under the arches at Charing Cross. It was fun watching the cute Japanese tourists dancing to Alien Sex-Fiend. Gigs were plentiful, you could see most of the bands you wanted to see in the course of a year. It was a great party town and all the things that made the party swing were readily available. (Party favors, jello & ice cream, that kind of thing.)

15. STREETS OF LONDON - THE ANTI-NOWHERE LEAGUE (3:16) (We Are The .. League)

London is so vast, one mixtape couldn't cover it. It is a frightening, wonderful, grimy, beautiful place and I miss it. I have a different life now, one that suits my situation. the town I live in is tiny compared with London, but I feel less safe than I ever did back home. Maybe this is all about your home town eclipsing any other place you wind up in.  Yeah, escape from L.A Sledg. If it was good enough for Snake Pliskin, it's good enough for you!

There will be a link to this mix very soon. Cheers!