Kittiwake

In mid- October The Swede post the title track from Bert Jansch's album Avocet in the Monday long song slot. It is indeed and long song, all eighteen minutes of it. The post is here. 

Avocet came out in 1979, a return to form for Jansch who had been a little out of sorts in the mid- 70s, living for a while in Los Angeles, returning home, splitting from his wife and then touring Australia and the Far East for several months. Together with violinist Martin Jenkins he toured Scandinavia and out there they began to develop some new ideas for songs. Once home they worked them up and recorded them as an album with Danny Thompson on board, bringing his innovative double bass playing. 

These became Avocet. The title track is eighteen minutes long, a tracks that shifts about and goes through phases, but always returning too the start. It's a sublime piece of modern folk music. There's nothing revivalist or twee about it- it two men creating new music at the end of a decade that had seen its fair share of changes. Avocet took up all of side one of the record. 

On side two there are five more songs, all named after British birds- Lapwing, Bittern, Kingfisher, Osprey (written by Jenkins) and Kittiwake. The songs, all entirely instrumental, start in folk but go off at tangents into neo- classical, skirt around jazz, drone and meditative. I hesitate to use the word ambient because they're not ambient at all- but you could slip them into an experimental ambient mix and they'd fit. The album was re- issued in 2016 and you can find it on Bandcamp with three extra live tracks recorded in Italy. 

Kittiwake is the closing track, vibrating double bass strings and Bert's tumbling guitar playing, inventive and melodic. Lovely. I think Vini Reilly may have been listening to Avocet. 

Kittiwake

There's probably a post to be written by someone better qualified than me about an alternative/ secret history of the late 70s, music made miles away from the spotlight of punk, New Wave, new pop and all the exciting stuff that was going on that thrilled so many people. Far from this there was Bert Jansch and Avocet (recorded in 1978, released in '79) and John Martyn's One World (two years earlier, 1977). There are probably others that fit in a similar category, unfashionable and out of the glare of publicity and popularity but still sounding good today.  

It Don't Bother Me

After work tonight I'm heading up the M6 for the first international bloggers summit in Glasgow where a weekend of middle aged men talking nonsense and drinking awaits. Tomorrow afternoon some of us are going to the Excelsior Stadium in Airdrie to watch the mighty Diamonds play Queen's Park and hopefully secure their position in the play offs. Before that, record shopping at Monorail (and maybe a pint or two).

I have been to a Scottish football match before I now recall, on a 6th form weekend away in Edinburgh in 1987. A bunch of us went to Easter Road to watch Hibs play Aberdeen. We wandered down to pay on the gate, avoiding various scuffles on the way between supporters of Hibs and the Dons. At half time almost every single person on the home end pissed through the fence onto the steps that led up to the turnstiles. An elderly man standing next to me shouted abuse at Aberdeen keeper Jim Leighton all the way through the second half. Truly, these were the days. I don't know what Jim had done to earn this abuse other than be in goal. The old man made repeated reference to Leighton's bandy legs in conjunction with a part of female anatomy. Within weeks Jim Leighton signed for my club Manchester United where he kept goal until being dropped for the 1990 FA Cup Final after one howler too many.

Bert Jansch was born in Glasgow in 1943 and is widely regarded as the king of British folk guitar. This track has just surfaced online ahead of some re-issues, a song recorded with Johnny Marr, the king of indie guitar, in the early 2000s. Lovely stuff.

Bert

Bert Jansch died today aged 67, one of British music's true originals. I had the privilege of seeing him play several years ago at The Lowry in Salford. In 2000, on a wave of interest in his work he recorded an album with Johnny Marr and Bernard Butler. This song features both Bert and Johnny.

Downunder