Mission accomplished … but the public service beat goes on

In which writewyattuk runs the rule over the eagerly-awaited debut LP from Public Service Broadcasting – Inform, Educate, Entertain … and discovers a ready-made classic. 

It’s always a nervous experience when a band you’ve learned to love during the incubation stages brings out its first album.

Sometimes it might fall short of the mark, not quite living up to the live promise, while other times the production isn’t quite what you’d expected.

Thankfully, Inform, Educate, Entertain hits all the right notes though, and we have all we could have hoped for from Public Service Broadcasting’s debut long player.

What’s more, for those of us who’ve been watching their progress via the live circuit, copious radio airplay and a succession of wonderfully-spliced archive public information films, there’s a few new songs to savour here too.

So while this is almost an instant greatest hits collection – even kicking off with its own ‘PSB on 45’ style mega-mix for the title track – it’s much more than that.

And while time constraints might rule out the inclusion of songs from the band’s War Room EP and a few other PSB live classics, that really isn’t a problem.

The introductions behind us, we dive head-first into the wondrous Spitfire, my favourite single of 2013, and just as evocative without its exquisite promo with snatches of The First of The Few, a Rolls-Royce Merlin engine–powered classic if ever there was one.

Corduroy-clad inspiration J Willgoose then effortlessly turns to banjo-driven live favourite Theme From PSB before another column gear shift for high-octane single Signal 30, and suddenly it’s as if the Wedding Present are with us in the car on this bare-knuckle ride.

Where to go from there? It couldn’t have been easy, but the mood changes again as Willgoose and Wrigglesworth take the Night Mail, a brave move when faced with all of us for whom the original 1936 GPO Film Unit information film holds such gravitas.

Yet they somehow get away with it, the sampled snippets of WH Auden’s iconic poem given added resonance here if that was possible. You shouldn’t be able to get away with painting something new on to such an accomplished soundscape, but it works.

Dynamic Duo: Public Service Broadcasting’s Wriggleworth, left, and Willgoose, on stage at Preston’s 53 Degrees in March (Photo: writewyattuk)

We need a little time for reflection from there, and Qomolangma gives a Holst-esque new dawn feel to the proceedings before we wave on the band’s first single, the dance-hypnotic, truly colourful ROYGBIV.

This time, Willgooses’s plucking and Wrigglesworth’ trip-beat combine to great effect on a slow-building gem, and in the right context surely we have the sound of summer.

The Now Generation takes that premise further, bringing to mind that better-known  cone-headed PSB duo, but perhaps swapping Tennant and Lowe’s ’80s opportunities for ’50s fashion tips.

There’s a major sea change from there to provide the oceanic backdrop of Lit Up, but again it works superbly, a fantastic example of pictures painted by sound, and that’s both the original audio commentary and all the two Ws have sonically built around that.

That invention is taken to a new height on the supreme Everest, the release of this sublime album perfectly timed to mark the 60^th anniversary of the historic Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay-led expo to the top of the world.

Having scaled the ultimate peak, Late Night Final has to be a measured withdrawal, and there’s a sense we’re making our way slowly home after all that’s gone before here, a fitting conclusion to a 43-minute epic project, and one suggesting there’s far more to come from this highly-inventive London duo.

If Public Service Broadcasting did indeed set out to ‘teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future’, their debut long player has achieved just that, and in style.

For more about Public Service Broadcasting, their upcoming gigs and how to order Inform, Educate, Entertain, head here

Wilko Johnson – we salute you

Beeb Farewell: Wilko Johnson during his guest slot with Madness at Broadcasting House last month (Photo: BBC)

WAS it really a month ago Madness were fighting off the bitter winter elements outside Broadcasting House, with their special guests including a certain guitar legend?

You had to fear for Wilko Johnson on such a freezing cold night with very little Spring about it, his hectic schedule interrupted by this milestone live BBC TV appearance.

It was all part of the 65-year-old’s on-going campaign to stick two fingers up to the monster that is cancer – pancreatic in his case, and terminal – as the Nutty Boys invited the ailing 65-year-old to join them on their eponymous cover of Prince Buster classic Madness.

As the snowflakes fell around them, Suggs announced over Woody’s drum beat to a truly-chilled (to the bone) crowd the imminent arrival of the ‘greatest British r’n'b guitarist of all time – bar none’, and on he ambled in dark suit, dark shirt, his trademark black Fender Telecaster with red pickguard around his neck. A sight to warm the cockles for sure.

Needless to say, Wilko played a blinder too, chopping out the ska beat on his customised six-string, the red flex stretching as he hithered and thithered around the stage, before lining up alongside Bedders and Chrissy Boy, that amiable grin never far from his lips.

Unfortunately, that might have been his final public appearance – although I’d love to be proved wrong on that score – with the two Canvey Island homecoming gigs set to follow called off late doors due to an almost-inevitable slide in his health.

His management reported a couple of days later that Johnson had cancelled for health reasons, and won’t return to the stage.

Facing Facts: Wilko Johnson (Photo borrowed along with the logo at the end of this article from his official Facebook page)

Wilko told Essex-based Echo News: “I only performed one song, but it was freezing. The wind was blowing up an absolute gale. It was whipping into my face – how Madness performed for an hour I have no idea. It was very very, very cold; and I think this is why I feel down.”

It was only back in December that Wilko discovered his cancer was terminal, deciding against a painful programme of treatment for what he felt might just secure another few months of poor health. Instead, he announced a farewell UK tour the following month, with plans for one more album and a live DVD too.

He was all set to take the stage at the sold-out Oysterfleet Hotel after the Madness gig for two nights, joined by Alison Moyet. But it was not to be, and Wilko added: “It is really upsetting not to perform for the people of Canvey at the end. I really wish I could have done it. If one little bit of me thought it was possible I would have done it.”

But if that Beeb bye-bye was the last live show for Wilko, so be it. There was certainly a tear in my eye, and thanks to his Camden Town comrades for inviting him on.

However he sees his days out from here – and I can only wish Wilko the least possible pain in the coming months – he’s already done enough to secure his place in the great musical hall of fame, and I’m just so glad I got to see him live a few years before.

Quite a few years before as it happened. I’m not quite old enough to have been rubbing shoulders with The Clash, Sex Pistols and The Stranglers at those seminal Dr Feelgood performances in the burgeoning village of London.

I also missed out on his most recent three-piece band’s tour, alongside Blockheads legendary bass player Norman Watt-Roy and drummer Dylan Howe. But I at least saw the Wilko Johnson Band a couple of times in the mid-’80s.

At that point he was touting 1985 mini-LP Watch Out! and, later, 1987′s Call It What You Want, in tandem (or trandem perhaps?) with Watt-Roy and drummer Salvatore Ramundo. And that first time I clapped eyes on him at Kennington Cricketers will always remain with me.

I loved that SE11 venue, situated alongside the Oval Cricket Ground, seeing so many great gigs there back in the day, not least a storming That Petrol Emotion show and rousing appearance by soul legend Geno Washington and The Ram-Jam Band.

At the latter, I recall one-time Dexy’s Midnight Runners inspiration Geno hollering at one point how he was going to do ‘this next song sideways’. It made little sense, but on the other hand somehow did, and if there was anyone else qualified to perform songs sideways, I guess it would be Wilko.

Long Gone: The Cricketers, Kennington, unfortunately no longer with us (Photo: Stephen Harris/http://www.closedpubs.co.uk/)

He proved that when I caught him at Kennington, and while I knew a bit about the Feelgoods at that point, starting with their post-Wilko era and working backwards to the sublime She Does It Right and so much more, I’d never seen them live.

I also knew Wilko – real name John Peter Wilkinson - from his spoken intro on Ian Dury & The Blockheads’ I Wanna Be Straight (brief and to the point, you could say), but certainly hadn’t seen him perform. And boy, could he perform.

First I knew of it was the expectant voices around me, saying, ‘Here he goes. Watch him!’ And then he was away, the first extended guitar riff marking his impressive sideways ‘skitter’, as if sweeping up the stage (which in a sense he was), made all the more spectacular by the fact that I couldn’t see his feet so he appeared to be floating across the stage.

That adds credence to the description of him and Feelgood frontman Lee Brilleaux as ‘two planets which would occasionally collide’. It was like watching some sinister character from an American b-movie getting around via hover-board. Maybe.

What’s more, that staccato sound he conjured up with his bare, bloodied fingers – no plectrums for our Wilko – on his Telecaster defined his special sound. And what a sound.

My old diaries tell me that Cricketers gig was in January 1986, and that I also got to see the Wilko Johnson Band in late 1987 at Putney’s Half Moon, another great atmospheric London venue of yore. Great days.

As it turned out, just a few days after his Broadcasting House cameo with his old Camden mates, I was on hand at Preston’s 53 Degrees as ex-band-mate Watt-Roy paid tribute to Canvey’s finest in an emotional intro to Sweet Gene Vincent, further dedicated to fellow cancer victims Ian Dury (who died in 2000) and original Blockheads drummer Charley Charles (who died in 1990).

If you add to that sad equation the fact that Brilleaux died of cancer in 1994, and Wilko’s beloved wife Irene died of the Big C nine years ago, you can only guess what Wilko must have felt when he received his own diagnosis.

The Brilleaux and Johnson story is told so powerfully in the wondrous 2009 Julien Temple-directed Oil City Confidential documentary, a fitting tribute for all time to an extraordinary Essex duo. Well worth seeking out if you haven’t yet caught it.

With lots of typically Temple-esque tangential twists and visual turns, Wilko proves to be the star of the show, talking us through – in his own inimitable style – all that being ‘born below sea level’ entailed.

From mystical mentions of Kent – that ‘promised land’ across the water – and the night lights of Shellhaven, plus an early love of blues and rock’n'roll, we get to understand something of the influences on a young lad born on the wrong side of the Thames.

Oil City Confidential also sheds light on Wilko’s unique picking style, a primary love of Howling Wolf and Johnny Kidd and the Pirates translated into something that in turn went on to influence the whole punk and new wave movement.

Prog and glam said little to these jug-band veterans (as Wilko put it, ‘rock’n'roll’s not about The Hobbit’), Lee’s strong on-stage persona perfectly complemented by Wilko’s inventive songcraft and live presence.

Wilko comes over as a complex character for sure, in a tale that includes teenage marriage, North-East studies, Far East hippie travels and drug experimentation, environmental political activism, a spell as an unorthodox schoolteacher, and an ever-present love of astronomy, literature and art.

But for all those complicated strands, the Feelgoods stuck with good, honest r’n'b – more A13 than Route 66 – and their live fan-base steadily built and led them to NME adoration and a United Artists deal in 1975, Down by the Jetty just being the start of their recorded output.

By the time second LP Malpractice followed, Lee, Wilko, Sparko and the Big Figure were living the dream, confident enough to release the live Stupidity as their third long player, and it going straight to No.1.

The crunchy followed the smooth, and a ’76 tour of America led to major rifts in the band, Lee and Wilko in particular at loggerheads, paying the price of an estimated ’1,000 shows in six intense years’.

When Wilko stopped writing songs, they were knackered – in more ways than one – the final rows during the recording of Sneakin’ Suspicion proving fatal, with Wilko leaving in 1977 as the new wave movement they inspired hit the big time.

The band went on without him, even registering their biggest hit in Milk and Alcohol, and any lingering hopes of reconciliation and reformation disappeared with Brilleaux’s passing in Leigh-on-Sea at the age of 41.

Some 19 years later, Wilko – who published his autobiography Looking Back At Me last year - is fighting his own battle. But now is not the time to be downcast about his story.

I can’t pretend to be the first to get my pre-obit in, either, as good friend of this blog Tony Parsons did that at the end of January, determined to pay his own respects to the bug-eyed performer ‘who made this world a better place’.

But what a legacy Wilko leaves behind, that Feelgood sound such an influence on so many bands – heard on everything from The Jam’s debut LP In The City in 1977 through to the first output from 2013 new Irish kids on the block The Strypes.

Wilko recently told the Echo News, “I never intended to follow this path but it all just happened. I was caught up in the fabulous seventies and I have had a great life.”

While there’s potentially a sad ending, the man himself has asked to go out on a high, so it would be wrong to go against that. Instead, I’ll simply say, we salute you, Wilko. You’re a legend.

Record Store Day – beware the corporate take-over

I’LL start with an admission. I tend to buy quite a bit of my back-catalogue from charity shops these days. Then there’s a few I borrow from the library, my young, free and single era replaced by an almost-middle-aged, economical and 45 phase (see what I did there?).

I know what you’re thinking. Cheapskate. But I do at least still try to spend a little of my hard-earned pocket money in independent record shops, and during holidays away in this country or visits to a strange town (with blisters on my feet, like Woking’s finest), I’ll quickly get something of the flavour of a place by a look around these tucked-away emporia.

Now HMV and Our Price are consigned to history, it’s clearly a crucial time for our remaining independent record shops, and this weekend many of these were somewhat easier to find than usual – on account of a spot of unexpected round-the-bend queueing.

I’m not talking foreign tourists or dyed-in-the-wool flag-waving little Englanders camped out in sleeping bags the night before to get a prime spot of the main action the next day. But it wasn’t far off at a few of these stores, by all accounts.

I was surprised to see even Action Records in Preston announcing on its website a one-in-one-out early-morning door policy to mark Record Store Day 2013. Blimey, what’s the world coming to? This was a hidden gem in a less-than-salubrious back-water last time I visited, staffed by burly, sometimes surly-looking long-hairs in rock band t-shirts. And I mean that in a good way.

So it appears from that and most of the tweets I saw on Saturday morning that Record Store Day has now become just another day in the corporate calendar. And what a shame that is – seemingly flying in the face of that good ole indie ethic that made a lot of these stores so enticing in the first place.

To further illustrate my point, when I asked a good friend who runs a successful record store in my old neck of the woods what he was up to for RSD 2013, he said: “Funny enough, with a £30 signing-on fee and thousands of phone calls in the days before by e-bayers wanting to reserve limited edition discs to re-sell for a quick profit it has in my view veered away from what it should be!”

Instead, for the second year running, his shop – Ben’s Collectors Records in Guildford –  decided to mark the occasion with live music provided by a ’60s folk duo, the guitarist in fact a former bass player from Sham 69. Now that’s more like it.

Prime Spot: Ben’s Collectors Records, with sheer weight of vinyl suggesting shop on slope (Photo: Ben Darnton)

But this can’t afford to just be a knocking piece. I’m all in favour of anything that helps promote independent stores and keep these traders afloat. I know just how much the afore-mentioned Ben has to splash out on rates to stay in a prime spot in his affluent county town, when it seems like the cards are loaded against him and in favour of all those soulless designer stores nearby.

Quite a few of us proper music lovers were carried along by the whole she-bang this weekend, and music journo Pete Paphides tweeted: “I am in a queue. Hoping that the 30-odd people ahead of me are mainly here for Marillion” while @keepingitpeel (in honour of late DJ legend John Peel) asked: “Can you play an mp3 at the wrong speed? No. Go out, find your local music store and buy a record.”

That said, esteemed crime writer and vinyl lover Ian Rankin noted ‘early doors’: ‘Record Store Day items already listing on Ebay – with bids’, while respected music broadcaster and writer David Hepworth tweeted a rather deep: ‘Have I got this right? Record Shop Day appears to be an annual event which taxes their most faithful customers.’

I should re-iterate at this point how I’m all in favour of giving the thumbs-up needed in these times of austerity, and there was plenty to celebrate on RSD 2013, despite the fact that the major labels seemed to hijack the event in places.

Paul Weller joined forces with The Strypes at a Rough Trade store, as did Public Service Broadcasting, and on what other weekend would you have heard Wedding Present front-man David Gedge talking on BBC Radio Five Live at 8am on a Saturday morning?

There was even a new Undertones single released to mark the occasion, and I certainly like the concept of Record Store Day. But more needs to be done to ensure we retain the last of our truly independent shops than this once-a-year beancountfest.

In the same way that Mother’s Day has become an excuse for florists and chocolatiers to make a few quid – the less-organised shamed into grabbing whatever they can find at the last minute from their local garage to mark the occasion and show heart-felt love for Mum – why don’t we just use a little independent spirit and free-thinking instead?

So here’s a revolutionary thought. Why not forget the Record Store Day branding exercise  and instead pop into your local record shop one quiet lunchtime this week instead?

I love my music, I love my CDs, and can’t bear to part with the last of my beloved vinyl.  Record Store Day means nothing to me, but I’ll continue to try and do my bit by splashing out a few quid here and there to keep these high street and back street gems as going concerns.

So next time I’m in Porthmadog I’ll pop in to Cob Records, next time I’m in Guildford I’ll drop by at Ben’s Collectors Records (both recently name-checked in the Guardian’s ‘best record stores’ readers’ poll, incidentally), and next time I’m in Preston, I’ll see if those burly blokes are still behind the counter at Action Records. As long as there’s not a queue to get in, mind.

Welsh Gem: Cob Records, Porthmadog, established in 1967, like the blogger himself,  (Photo: cobrecords.com)

Reasons to be Grateful, Part 53

OI OI! They may be missing the main man these days, but The Blockheads are going strong, judging by Friday night at Preston’s 53 Degrees.

Cutting to the chase, Derek Hussey – familiar on-stage long before his promotion to front-man – does very well, even though the band’s power remains in the words of sadly-departed Ian Dury and his excellent backing band.

The Blockheads were always so much more than mere back-up of course, with such talent in their ranks.

And while this is definitely a collective, Marty Feldman-like figure Norman Watt-Roy on bass looks right centre-stage alongside Derek the Draw, the technically-brilliant and all-round good egg nothing less than a diamond in the rough.

Then there’s Dury’s main co-writer Chaz Jankel, a cross these days between Clive Dunn’s Grandad and Grandpa Piggley from Irish children’s TV series Jakers, what with his flat cap, specs and cravat.

Also playing a stormer was Dave Lewis, one of the more recent ‘Heads on the block, and while Mickey Gallagher was hidden away behind the PA stack to my left, there was no doubting his keyboard contribution.

It was also good to see Johnny Turnbull his usual cheeky self on guitar, and grinning from ear to ear – as if he can’t quite get over the fact he’s with all these senior citizens of new wave – drummer John Roberts kept it all together.

You get the feeling from the start that it’s Derek under the microscope for those who haven’t seen the band lately.

I was among those, my last Blockheads gig being a memorable 1990 benefit for original drummer Charley Charles at Kentish Town’s Town & Country Club. Ten years later, Dury had also left us (13 years ago this very week), but now the band are back, still writing strong material and celebrating – at least on a low-key basis – 35 years on the road.

That’s always been an on-off existence, members drifting in and out over the years, with a wealth of other projects between fall-outs with a notoriously-difficult original frontman.

Did you realise, for example, Watt-Roy played that memorable bass-line on Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax, part of a session band suggesting it was more Holly Johnson and the Blockheads than as advertised.

I saw Watt-Roy one memorable night in the mid-80s with the Wilko Johnson Band, a three-piece delighting a bustling Kennington Cricketers crowd, not long after the Dr Feelgood co-founder had played his own part in a rich Blockheads history.

Needless to say, Norman dedicated a song to Wilko and his on-going battle with cancer, before the band launched into Sweet Gene Vincent, with Ian and Charlie also getting name-checks from Derek. But this is a band of survivors for sure, Norman remarking how they need the drugs ‘to stay alive’ these days, after Mickey’s mention of the 35th anniversary.

As for the songs, they delighted from the start with Sex & Drugs & Rock & Roll and I Wanna Be Straight before Hussey-penned Staring Down The Barrel songs A Little Knowledge and George the Human Pigeon, the latter offering shades of Park Life alongside a Steely Dan band feel.

Back to the old days it was New Boots & Panties‘ If I Was With a Woman and Do It Yourself‘s Inbetweenies, although I’m not sure we needed to see Derek’s actions to go with the suggestive bits.

Then came 2009′s upbeat, inspirational Hold Tight, before an unmistakable piano intro greeted Wake Up and Make Love With Me, followed by the part-wistful part-rocking classic Sweet Gene Vincent.

The hits kept coming, the wondrous What a Waste including tailored line ‘I tried to play the fool in a seven-piece band’, while Preston sang happily along to the ever-sublime tale of Clever Trevor, amid much middle-age grooving all around.

It may take much longer to get up North the slow way, but on this evidence Derek doesn’t feel the need to prove himself, and certainly showed his worth on Prophet of Doom, a pensive environmental lyric echoing Lou Reed’s Last Great American Whale as much as Dury’s You’ll See Glimpses.

Then came the wonderfully-catchy Itinerant Child from Dury’s valued farewell Mr Love Pants, signalling a column gear change up for big finale Reasons To Be Cheerful Pt 3 – including a brief segue into Jack Shit George – then Hit Me With Your Rhythm Stick.

The latter ’78 classic – possibly the first song I knew every line to – included Dave Lewis’s considerable two-sax appeal, played at once of course, and a whole host of storming solos, not least Norman’s coup de grace bass.

There was still time for two more Dury/Jankel show-stoppers, the raucous self-titled Blockheads followed by under-stated finale Lullaby to Francies, providing a welcome ear-worm as we headed off all warm and fuzzy into the sub-zero Lancashire night.

Thank you Blockheads, it was a blast. You’ve given us much to savour these past four decades, and long may you groove on.

* For all enquiries re photos reproduced on these pages, contact writewyattuk.

Hats off to James Herbert, a master of his art

THE kids of today have got it easy, of course. All that young adult fiction out there, waiting to be discovered.

It wasn’t like that for my generation. My transition from Clive King’s Stig of the Dump and J. Meade Faulkner’s Moonfleet to cult reads like Colin MacInnes’ Absolute Beginners came via an altogether more rugged, steep gradient.

I can’t remember any peer pressure, but I wasn’t the first at my school to discover James Herbert, who died this week just short of his 70th birthday. Looking back now, I wonder if he was writing teen fiction before there was even a name for it. Either way, his books were the talk of the playground and classroom at one stage, and in time I was intrigued enough to get hold of my own copies.

The Rats was the one that got us sitting up and taking notice. It sold 100,000 copies in the first fortnight alone, despite mixed reviews. Herbert was 28 at the time. That was in 1974, when I was only six, so I only got to read it in around four years later, during middle school.

It was graphic for sure, whether we’re talking about the gory scenes of mutilation or the other X-rated scenes that went hand in glove with that, so to speak. Either way, it certainly had an impact on this impressionable youngster. I’ve not gone back to re-read those books anew, but can see now how important they were, setting me up for a move towards Stephen King and beyond. The fact that The Rats held something of a message about the decay of post-war London was probably lost on me.

Within a few years I’d moved away from horror, but like to think I learned a lot about suspense and writing along the way, and have Herbert and King in particular to thank for that. Both had that rare ability to make you feel you were entering a dark room or wood with their main characters, unsure what you might find there, every creaky floorboard or crack of a branch likely to spring real horror upon you – slow-building drama that drew you in.

Herbert had a lot to answer for my generation in certain respects. Let’s face it, chances were that those embarrassing sex education lessons in stuffy classrooms with hot-under-the-collar teachers came too late, so to speak. Instead, the teenage lad’s learning zone was more likely to be outside the school disco, through a secret stash of dodgy magazines or a well-thumbed paperback by this East End author, springing open at select passages.

By the time I was reading The Rats, there were more contenders from the same writer, his second book, The Fog, taking us from man-eating giant black rats to accidentally-released chemical weapons unleashing insanity and depravity in equal measures. And unlike the unrelated John Carpenter film from 1980, I could relate to the geography too.

Herbert clearly never forgot his London roots, and when he moved on it was to settle in West Sussex, so we had that South-East bond in common. Not as if I saw much evidence of frothing fog-affected victims in suburban Surrey or saw too many disease-carrying vermin around my neck of the woods. That said, Guildford band The Stranglers practised in my village scout hut at one stage, so maybe they got the inspiration there for the ground-breaking Rattus Norvegicus album.

His third book, The Survivor, about the aftermath of a terrible airline crash, made more of an impression. All three had an influence on this young teenager, but the supernatural horror aspects of the latter perhaps asserted more resonance.

I seem to recall being disappointed with Fluke. Maybe I just wasn’t ready to see what life might be like if i was to be reincarnated as a dog. Incidentally, I think I borrowed my copy from the travelling library that visited the bottom of the road. I can still feel that vehicle rocking as you walked towards the back, and not because someone was in a dark corner reading The Rats.

Then came The Spear, a supernatural horror with a chilling depiction of the rise of neo-Nazism in the UK. This was evil that a council house lad with leftist sympathies could get his head around – conspiracy theories, degenerate Americans, arms dealers, the occult, right-wing activists, and a secret bid to resurrect Heinrich Himmler. I had Donald Pleasance in mind as the latter when I imagined the screenplay.

Lair was next, the follow-up to The Rats picking up where we’d left off, but taking his rodent invasion to the countryside now. I think I made a mental point at that stage to keep out of Epping Forest, and have kept to that somehow.

By that stage, Herbert had finally given up his day-job in an advertising agency and was writing full-time. I vaguely recall 1980′s The Dark - kind of The Fog pt II – and 1981′s The Jonah, by which time he’d moved towards thrillers (with plenty of horror thrown in though). I was probably scaring myself witless with King’s The Shining and Salem’s Lot and a few early VHSs then, and pretty soon I’d lost that early love/hate relationship with horror. Luckily I got out before Freddy Krueger came to town too. Nightmare.

Music and comedy had re-taken centre-stage, most of my reading out of school by then involving film and music biographies, and any features in Smash Hits then the NME. Like many authors, music played a big part in Herbert’s story too, his Desert Island Discs radio outing with Michael Parkinson in 1986 suggesting a love of rock’n'roll – from Fats Domino’s Blueberry Hill to Eddie Cochran’s Summertime Blues – as well as Edvard Grieg’s Morning from Peer Gynt and Gustav Holst’s The Planets suite, the latter of which he felt musically mirrored the plot of a few of his novels.

Herbert kept on writing, publishing 23 full-blown novels in all, of which six were adapted into films or for radio or television, selling 54 million books worldwide, translated into 34 languages. Within 15 years – while still portrayed as the writer who brought us The Rats – he’d even moved on to three-word titles, maturing with works like The Magic Cottage, shifting further away from sci-fi to supernatural elements. He also illustrated his own work and had a hankering to write children’s books too. That never seemed to come to fruition though.

By 2010, he was an OBE, and a BBC TV adaptation of The Secret of Crickley Hall made an impact only late last year. I recall an interview with the man himself by Graham Norton on Radio 2, and outings on the BBC Breakfast sofa too, a walking stick at his side and age starting to catch up, although this man in black still had a hankering for his drainpipe trousers. As it was, Herbert’s death came soon after the paperback release of Ash, which saw a return to his parapsychologist and cynical ghost-hunter, first introduced in 1988′s Haunted.

TV Times: Suranne Jones and Tom Ellis featured alongside Dougie Henshall in last year’s BBC adaptation of Herbert’s The Secret of Crickley Hall (Pic: BBC)

While my own sphere of reading changed over the intervening years, I acknowledge a debt to James Herbert. Above all, I truly respect a fellow working-class writer who overcame the odds and did most of his own promotional work, long before that was seen as the way forward in the publishing world.

Many more great writers were inspired by him in their impressionable years, from Neil Gaiman to Ian Rankin, quick to praise an author who took horror away from the Hammer era and made it more relevant to the world we were living in.

You were a master in your field, and came over as a good bloke too. RIP Jim.

Neil Finn and Paul Kelly – Sydney Opera House

BLIMEY. Pushed out the boat a bit for this one, didn’t we? This blog’s just under a year old  yet I’m already snapping up expenses-paid trips to New South Wales?

Well, not quite. Besides, any writewyattuk profits go straight to hosts WordPress at this point in time. But ain’t technology marvellous, kids? For this week I got to see a live streaming of New Zealand singer-songwriter Neil Finn and his esteemed Aussie buddy Paul Kelly’s end of tour stage party, beamed in from Sydney via YouTube.

Sometimes, I have trouble with websites set up barely a few miles from here, and often struggle to receive mobile phone text messages from my better half asking to put the kettle on when she leaves work. But there on Monday was a hitch-free two-and-a-half hour transmission from half-way around the world, with barely a handful of technical glitches throughout, most involving brief frozen images.

What a show too, Finn returning to Sydney Cove 16 years after Crowded House’s momentous Farewell to the World show outside the Opera House, this time with Adelaide’s finest musical export for company.

Last Time: Crowded House famously played Sydney Opera House in ’96

While Kelly’s own output is little known outside his native Australia, Finn’s appeal has secured a huge fan-base around the world, from his younger days in brother Tim’s Split Enz through to his admirable international solo output in recent years. And there was a great taste of that material throughout this set, alongside a few classics in their own right from Kelly, many new to us on this side of the world.

Even the opening was memorable, these celebrated songsmiths entering from opposite wings carrying lanterns, breaking the pitch-dark, arriving at stage front to shake hands before an acoustic guitar and vocal duet on Kelly’s Don’t Stand So Close To The Window, followed by Finn’s Woodface classic Four Seasons in One Day, joined part-way through by their band-mates – Zoe Hauptmann on bass, Paul’s nephew Dan Kelly on guitar, and Neil’s son Elroy on drums.

That format became the key, Finn and Kelly trading compositions, their own individual touches skewing ownership, or ‘morphing’ as they put it, Paul often singing Neil’s parts and vice versa – as was the case on Before Too Long, dating from Kelly’s mid-’80s days, when he had hair and Coloured Girls for company.

Past Passion: Paul Kelly, when he still had hair

Finn’s commercially under-valued She Will Have Her Way followed, from 1998′s Try Whistling This, giving his all on his russet red electric guitar, the hits and near-misses continuing as Kelly gave us his ‘parlour song’ For The Ages - with Zoe on double bass while Elroy took to his brushes – then we were treated to a more country waltz take on Beatle-esque final Crowded House Mk.I single Not The Girl You Think You Are.

It was only 10.30 in the morning in Northern England at that point and I really should have been  working, but how could I turn away? Remember the episode of Friends where Joey and Chandler chance upon free porn and are scared to turn off the TV in case they lose it? Well, this was the musical alternative, and I was here for the long haul.

Finn’s Sinner, again from 1998, was next, Kelly adding the kooky synth loop, then telling us, ‘it’s good to have Neil Finn in your band, because he can sing all the high bits’, before using that Finn falsetto to good effect on his Dylan-esque Careless.

Brotherly Love: Tim & Neil’s superb Everyone Is Here

Then it was the Finn Brothers’ Won’t Give In, (sort of) title track of the luscious Everyone is Here, the duo still trading verses, as they did on another Tim and Neil song, Only Talking Sense, from their first brothers-only release in 1995, Dan cranking up his electric and Elroy in full flow at his kit for the climax.

While Finn spoke of writing songs with his bro, Kelly boasted co-writing duties with early 17th-century poet John Donne on New Found Year, then re-arranged Finn’s Crowded House number Into Temptation from 1988′s Temple of Low Men, enhancing an already haunting song.

Finn reciprocated with a re-telling of Kelly’s You Can Put Your Shoes Under My Bed in tribute to his Irish-born mum and All Blacks rugby legend Tana Umaga, pensive piano complementing the songwriter’s wistful harmonica, before Kelly’s folky They Thought I Was Asleep then a mournful acoustic take on Crowded House’s Private Universe and a brooding version of Split Enz’s Squeeze-like One Step Ahead, penned by a 22-year-old Finn back in 1980.

The songs kept coming between the banter, the band stepping up the pace with Kelly’s Dumb Things - Finn adding boogie-woogie piano – then Dan Kelly taking a Neil Young approach to his uncle’s Springsteen-like Deeper Water, both front-men swapping lead vocals.

You always expect a few Finn standards from these collaborative shows, and soon the Opera House guests were treated to Crowded House lump-in-the-throat crowd-pleaser Better Be Home Soon. And while Kelly has had fewer hits, there was mass appreciation for his cherished How To Make Gravy story song too, bringing memories of late, great Go-Between Grant McLennan to mind for me.

Back Catalogue: Paul Kelly’s fame Down Under is largely yet to cross over

Finn had more in his armoury of course, the wondrous Distant Sun up next from 1993′s Together Alone, Kelly’s spoken verse adding a fresh dimension and the ‘seven worlds will collide whenever I am by your side’ line particularly apt on such a night, as the rest of the globe tuned in via the internet. There’s progress for you.

Time marched on and the encores arrived, but neither front-man looked like they wanted to leave. Kelly sporting his natty fedora again when they returned for My Winter Coat, protection for his bald pate as artificial snow fell on him and into Finn’s red wine, while Dan added Duane Eddy guitar to his uncle’s Leonard Cohen-like vocal.

There was a spirit of droll mischief from Kelly as he asked, “Got another hit for us, Neil?” to which the son of Te Awamutu replied, “Yeah, it’s about time I wrote another one, isn’t it?” in something that sounded like it was lifted straight from cult TV comedy Flight of the Conchords.

That particular hit was Fall At Your Feet, another sublime Woodface classic, before Kelly’s Dylan and The Band-style To Her Door, complete with Finn’s ‘rollicking piano’. And the chat went on between songs, the latter mentioning how Finn only had to learn five chords for their combined set, while he had to learn around 50, the last of those the quickly-recognised intro to Don’t Dream It’s Over (somehow now 27 years old), Finn on keyboards as the rest of the band, the Opera House guests and 18,000 web-watchers back home added backing vocals.

Early Days: New Zealand’s finest, way back then

They returned again, Zoe’s reverberating bass leading us into Kelly’s almost-anthemic and certainly inspirational Love Is the Law followed by more mellow but no less powerful Split Enz hit Message to My Girl, penned by a 26-year-old Finn nearly 30 years before, and delivered as ever with real emotion.

They still weren’t done, the twin headliners giving us a twist on the winning Everly Brothers formula with their band on Buddy Holly’s gorgeous Words of Love, Zoe’s double bass adding to it all.

Then came a gorgeous finale, just Neil and Paul left for Henry Mancini and Johnny Mercer’s five-decade old Moon River, the harmonies perfect, Kelly again adding plaintive harmonica, the ‘two drifters off to see the world, there’s such a lot of world to see’ line poignant to say the least.

And just as they’d arrived, so they departed, this treasured pair picking up their lanterns and exiting in different directions, after a truly amazing 155-minute diversion from all life’s toils, all over this connected world.

Since finishing this review, I’ve chanced upon the full concert again courtesy of the SOHfestival on YouTube, with a link here if it’s still posted. 

Cardinal deliberations and Garry’s magic 50

Lining Up: The Woking players get ready for a battling draw at Macclesfield Town (Photo courtesy of David Holmes)

ANYONE who’s listened to outwardly gruff, sometimes grouchy, occasionally gregarious Garry Hill’s post-match interviews this season will know he’s had a bit of a thing for that ‘magical 50-point mark’.

With all due respect to the Woking FC boss, it’s one of those cliched yardsticks in football that comes up time and again, despite its complete absence from any established works of spell-bound literary fantasy by Pullman, Rowling or Tolkien.

You never heard about that magical quest for football’s Holy Grail of avoiding relegation from Frodo Baggins (not to be confused with Cards legend Mark Biggins), Lyra Belacqua (nothing to do with Hull City’s ex-Woking keeper Adriano Basso) or that speccy lad Potter (that’s Harry, not pre- and post-war Cardinal Doug).

Those successive wins I mentioned on this blog at Southport and at home to Forest Green saw Hill’s points target just one win away by the time of Lincoln City’s March 1st visit. But a draw then, followed by a home defeat to Mansfield, left us grounded on 48.

It looked like we had at least a point at Cambridge United on the 9th, but in the week the Cardinals maybe had their minds on other things in Rome, the Abbey Stadium away end proved something of a dissolved monastery at full time, Seb Brown’s error leading to a late, late home winner, while their keeper Pope (I kid you not) and his team-mates celebrated.

We needed a boost after that, and it came in the shape of a battling display in a goalless draw at Macclesfield Town the following Tuesday, taking us up to 49 points. And what a performance that was, every bit as important as the more headline-grabbing home wins Woking have carved out this season.

In the end, it took a final great save from Brown to absolve that previous match’s error and ensure a point, keeping out ex-Card Keiran Murtagh, who along with his gaffer Steve King – described by that night’s radio summariser John Moore as looking more like he was off to a   gymkhana with the Cheshire set – seemed to suggest they had something to prove against these part-time Surrey upstarts.

Saving Grace: Woking stopper Seb Brown saves the day at the Moss Rose (Photo courtesy of David Holmes)

It wasn’t the on-loan Dons stopper’s first important save of the night, but he seemed to have gained confidence as the game worse on, buoyed by a committed defensive display from central pairing Joe McNerney and man of the match Brett Johnson, who proved assured beyond belief.

Then there was John Nutter, a thorn in the Silkmen’s armoury at both ends, while captain Mark Ricketts was his usual cool and commanding self in the middle of the park, despite a couple of choice Macc challenges (even if Lee Sawyer’s own part was curtailed by a caution which saw his half-time departure and a further ban in the offing).

Equestrian Style: Steve King gets animated at Macclesfield (Photo courtesy of David Holmes)

While we rarely looked like having the ability to unlock Macc’s own defence in that first half, an inspired interval switch saw Kevin Betsy come into his own and Bradley Bubb and Jayden Stockley cause all manner of problems up front … apart from scoring of course, but you can’t have it all (apparently).

After the final whistle at the Moss Rose, I was on hand as the home stewards gathered for their stand-down, Steve Thompson took the Cards players for a warm-down on the pitch, and our Garry gave his post-match interviews and on-air summary. He then headed down the main stand steps and was informed of that night’s results, seemingly giving his blessing to each (yep, that religious theme again), announcing how he wanted 60 points now. Eh? 60? Blimey, he’d unofficially changed the goalposts again. But why not.

Come Saturday, our big chance of reaching that new plateau arrived in the form of a home clash with as-good-as-doomed AFC Telford United, rock bottom after just 31 points from 38 league matches, a succession of behind-the-scenes traumas mirrored on the pitch for the beleaguered Bucks.

Not as if that made us any more confident. We have a habit of beating the better teams yet coming unstuck against the others. The stats were simple enough – 10 draws, 14 defeats and no victories since October 9th’s 4-1 victory at Dartford, that just three days after a 1-0 home win over the Cards in which keeper Aaron Howe was dismissed in the third minute.

But, on what Bucks caretaker boss John Psaras told BBC Radio Shropshire was a ‘potato field’ (didn’t stop both teams playing nice football on it, mind), the visitors were three goals down by the break, left with a ‘mountain to climb’ (another misguided topographical reference, methinks), with returning midfield playmaker Billy Knott – on loan from Sunderland but regularly sidelined by injury – wasting no time in melting our hearts again.

Loan Ranger: Billy Knott on the ball against Telford (Photo courtesy of David Holmes)

I couldn’t be at Kingfield, but Jon Howick’s BBC Surrey commentary was just the job, the club highlights later adding to the picture. The Cards forged ahead through two Bubb strikes and a belter from Stockley, unlucky Telford giving it a go but beaten by superior finishing. But it wouldn’t be my Woking without a few missed heartbeats, and after Bucks keeper Ryan Young twice kept out Stockley, former Northern Ireland striker Steve Jones (who I remember in his younger days at Chorley) pulled one back early in the second half.

Still we might have finished them off, Bubb not far off again and a Betsy delivery beating the keeper and last defender only for Jack Parkinson to somehow scoop over. And you might have thought in the week when the Cardinals finally made their deliberations and chose Francis that we had been offered absolution of past sins at that point.

However, I’m talking about sub Adam Francis, son of Gerry (one of my boyhood heroes, along with England and QPR team-mate Stan Bowles), and I think all that red and white smoke issuing from the Kingfield version of the Sistine Chapel (well, it is my church, after all) seemed to get in our eyes, Platters-style, as Aaron Williams struck a second for Telford with nine minutes left, and it looked like we were about to be ex-communicated, forever destined to retain negative goal difference after that December thrashing at Hyde.

However, Young then went from Bucks hero to villain in rather bewildering circumstances, his post-challenge shirt-grabbing of Parkinson leading to something of a free-for-all and the ref calling play back, booking the keeper and awarding a penalty. While there was confusion at the incident, Bubb positively blasted the ball to Young’s left for his hat-trick.

Brad Blast: Woking’s Bradley Bubb ties up the Cardinals’ victory over Telford (Photo courtesy of David Holmes)

There was still time for a sloppy Bucks pass to play in Betsy, who rounded the keeper with aplomb -whatever that is – and slotted home a last-minute fifth, on a day when Hill admitted it might have been 10-6. One thing’s for sure, that Michelangelo would have struggled to have come up with a snappy mural on the Victoria Arch underpass to depict this seven-goal thriller. 

Whether ‘Bubby’ (as our gaffer later called the on-loan Aldershot striker) or ‘Knotty’ (I made that one up of course) will be with us come the end of term remains to be seen, but the fact is that – as Hill later underlined – in a national division of 16 full-time clubs and 13 ex-Football League outfits, we’ve punched well above our weight this time, making our 52 points and counting every bit as pleasing as last year’s Blue Square South title.

New Mission: Garry Hill

Our Garry had something else to add before heading home, telling Jon Howick on the radio ’65 points has to be the target’. Eh? 65 points? Had I misheard him? Clearly not. For there he was on camera soon after, telling us: “If we can get 65 points I’ll probably look at that as being a better achievement than winning the Conference South last year.”

So there we go, in the week when the Cardinals deliberated then finally delivered, while the Holy Grail had been found, there was still plenty to play for. Enough poor religious and supernatural metaphors and puns? Maybe. But our Garry tells us the mission from here on in and those last nine league games is to gain at least 65 points. If we can do that perhaps we could even arrange a blessing at St Peter’s. In Old Woking that is, of course, rather than Vatican City. And that’ll be magic enough until next season.

* To those who for some reason unfathomable to this blogger are puzzled as to the origins of my club’s nickname, the Cardinals, it is believed – he adds, vaguely – to go back to a visit to the area by Cardinal Thomas Wolsey nearly 500 years ago, when Clive Walker was just a twinkle in his father’s eye.

Palace Fan: Cardinal Wolsey, depicted by Frank O. Salisbury in his 1910 painting, asking the KRE regulars to sing up

It is understood that  ’Wolster’ (his on-pitch nickname) was staying with his old mucker King Henry VIII (whom I believe preferred a Saturday afternoon wedding to a keen-fought derby) at Woking Palace (surprisingly not a football team in their own right) in 1515 (quarter past kick-off) when he heard he had been made a cardinal by Pope Leo X. 

Actually, my sources reveal that Tommy was more of a Saturday afternoon shopper than a footie fan, hence one of Woking’s two main shopping centres being named after him since. But the idea stuck, and we were soon wearing Cardinal Red.

Incidentally, while we’re at it, the afore-mentioned Pope had nothing to do with that 1970s’ big-haired clown-loving singer Sayer nor the 16th-century version of the appalling Simon Cowell-driven TV ‘talent’ contest. So now you know. Personally, I’d have preferred it if we’d gone with the other nickname that caught on in our early days, the Cremators. More of that next time … probably.