If man is five...

A few days ago I broke one of my personal rules and actually engaged with a proper nutter in town. This bloke was festooned with fire-and-brimstone slogans and wore badges like "SODOMY" with a red line through it, and "ABORTION IS BABY MURDER" and all that. In fact, it all made him look like he was wearing a heavy metal festival line-up. If only.

Neither of us learned anything of course from this discussion. Aside from I (re-)learned I ought not to try and have a proper discussion with someone who's already decided what they think. Ready, fire, aim.

This dingler did however give me a little piece of paper about heaven and hell. Hell, in red, on one side, and heaven in a nice blue on the other. You can see them at the bottom of this email, where Bumblebee is keeping hell in check and my lovely right hand JBL Control One speaker is overseeing heaven.

Now as Black Francis once sang, if man is five, then the devil is six and if the devil is six then god is seven. And who am I to argue with The Pixies (even with Paz on bass)? Inspiration, constantly, from one of the greatest bands ever to have banded together in band-land. Particularly in the late 1980s with Kim in the band. What a babe, too. 

So I took five minutes to extract every sixth word from the hell side, and every seventh word from the heaven side. I hoped to find a message or at least a treasure map. Each sentence here corresponds to a paragraph; I didn't count the citations as words; and I think I might have gone off-track on the hell one. But that's the devil for ya innit. Cheeky blighter. 

Here's the poem of sorts that emerged from it - I retained the capitalisation for, well, cause I thought it'd look cooler.

_________

(hell side)

FIRE If THIS away the the of place end like up place will of avoided the prepared angels is regret water.

Death burning will of forever.

Hell a believe one’s will grave Charles or.

Into do in cowardly those liars the Those again who begin in and salvation endure continue in one TEST people of image Antichrist who remain sin are follow.

Escape sins your your keep unashamedly have IF END first read adjusting BELIEVE HAVE FINAL all know IN WHAT OF right the this let FOR be for until the Way reject Him you you your reverse be church good keeping THE Sacred Koran is annihilation sleep.

100%

Into

Gnashing

Of

_________

(heaven side)

The said and truth in Be and away more or a ambulance kingdom Heaven is 1,400 wide gold never the is moon Lamb the life of city to love.

YOU by and did in you to than and Any up disciple daily die in you Spirit because salvation Christ soul life Son.

How is relationship the soul AS faithfulness it from eternity lost possessions retain pay which ARE soul to faithful important this to many enter Keep polluted kind things all YOUR Mormons just TV of is of SOUL with isn’t Compare in a Bible just mother God’s The to nature who as Do disown ACT.

Set

WITH

Crying

Outreach

Peace!

_________

Congratulations on reading this far. Here's my favourite song of all time, by anyone, ever. It's Caribou, and it made me cry every I saw them play it. And when I saw him play it solo on a few occasions. Yabadabadooo.

Metre's all over the place, the rhymes are shoddy, it has a weird structure and feels unfinished: you'll sell fucking millions, bozo

I’ve always been quite interested in poetry

But I don’t think it’s all that bothered with me.

Nonetheless, I must confess

There’s words about, and whilst I’m out

I rhyme in my bonce to a rapt audience

Of one.

Just me.

I don’t work in the town where I live these days

So Arriva’s my limo; it’s an hour each way

On the bus. That’s fine, cause most

Journeys just last for a single podcast:

Ron Burgundy or Atletico Mince

Or so on.

They’re free.

Daftly, sometimes I forget to juice up my phone

So the battery’s dead and the travel drears long.

So I try to spend the time

Staring out the windows at

Shropshire and grass and lambs and stuff.

It’s fun.

It’s free.

Quite near Bicton there’s a little spread

Of trees: you might call it a wood-wide web

And feel good. Well, you would

If poetry liked you and these things inspired you.

There might be a book in it. Ay, and people do

Publish.

Just not me.

In that small copse - just a line of trees, really –

Is my all time, forever, and favourite tree.

Well, it’s two. They stand, too

In a particularly lovely and difficult way

That makes me smile. The others just sway

Alone.

When it’s windy.

The trunks stand apart, but their branches reach out

And embrace with such loveliness it spears my heart.

Rooted in soil, apart but whole,

Like nothing could keep them from holding hands

Like no-one could keep them away, so they stand

Together.

It’s lovely.

I always thought one day I’d write a poem

Something lyrical. Resonant. Beautiful, even.

But I don’t think I can.

Because justice won’t be done. And like I say,

I’m interested in poetry. But it’s not

Bothered

With me.

A Man Without A Team: The End of the Beginning

I must say I have always hated 'the end of the beginning' as a phrase.

It's up there with 'sophomore album' or the awful Ritz-Carlton, Grand Cayman use of 'cheftestants' for the competitors in their culinary competition as an irritant. (The only portmanteau I now deem to be allowed from this point on is 'portmantoe'; a portmanteau of 'portmanteau' and 'toe').

Still, I was happy last week because

a) I spent most of it sitting on a beach in the south of Spain, reading, and the rest of the time either having tapas or menus del dia or drinking cava or sleeping.

b) The BCFCSA had another EGM, which resulted in votes in favour of setting up a new club, as well as that body incorporating as a Community Benefit Society, better known as a Supporters' Trust.

What this means is that in short(ish) order there will actually be a situation where I am, again, a man with a team. I have a club; that is to say, the club is the fans, the spirit, the triumphs and the down times, the camaraderie and the community. The club, the comrades, the belonging. It's difficult, but not impossible, to explain. Suffice it to say that a club is not predicated on the biggest bank balance. Teams might win things, and do, because they're the richest - but since when was that any kind of indication of value?

Course, people don't all get it. There's still more than a few anonymous nobbers on message boards, who are in some cases likely to be the same few dinglers repeating the same phrases:

* It's not Bangor City, this new club. 

To which I say: That is precisely the point. What Bangor City has become is not Bangor City either. We are reclaiming Bangor City, or Bangor Athletic, or Bangor Comrades, for the community, the fans, the spirit. And in any case, Bangor City has gone bust at least once in my memory, to be replaced by another administration. And before City, there was Athletic, there was a team called Comrades... how far back do you wanna go?

* The BCFCSA are cowards who should have stayed and fought.

- Fought what? Fought how? Withdrawal of support may not have a huge financial effect on anything, but the financial side of the club is second or third in line after the spirit and community aspects. 

* Who is in charge? What's the team name? Where will they play? Who is the manager? What? What? When? Why?

- This one makes me smile. The EGM was a week ago, and already there's people believing that suddenly a magic wand could be waved and everything changed immediately after the vote. This is the 'Brexit pricks' effect in full and idiotic action, isn't it?

What is actually more pressing, and sadder still, is the fact that some of the unique and irreplaceable memorabilia has been stolen from the clubhouse at Nantporth and put up for sale in, oops, Liverpool. This hasn't been publicised in the press too much yet. But it includes an away poster from our match at Atletico Madrid in 1985, and some Wembley 1984 pieces. Not worth too much on the open market I wouldn't have thought, but to Bangor City fans - priceless. (And, yes, I include myself in that).

So next season, as early as maybe July, there may yet be a team to follow again. Almost certainly at a league three or so rungs lower down than the farrago of blue freakishness that is currently infesting the Nantporth mudshit. Almost certainly playing on plastic at an as-yet-unnamed 'Tier 3 compliant ground'. Almost certainly players playing for free, or even paying subs, or playing for peanuts.

But ours. Honest, and probably local boys, and with the spirit and community that really drives what used to be called non-league football forward. No dodgy money, no racist comedians, no bullshit about prizefights, no cut-off utilities, no winding-up orders, no employees taking the club to court for unpaid wages, no employees sleeping in the offices at the ground and sitting on the subs' bench at the weekend, no unregistered underage players for the U19s.

To think, folks, to think that last season (yes, it was only 12 months ago), Bangor City were going for 2nd in the league and the Welsh Cup. But because of this, it's all gone to shit.

Which brings me to the funniest, final little nonsense that's posted on message boards:

* You were happy to support the team when they were doing well, and happy to support the owners too. If you invite a thief into your house and he steals your telly, it's your fault.

- Painful isn't it? And pitiful: all anyone wants to do is support the team. The first time we really had any idea of how bad it was off the pitch was when they failed the license. Again, all they had to do was get the books in order and signed off by the auditors. Fuck me, we'd have probably won the league this season - the plastics are way worse than they have been for years. Nobody supports owners, it's the rules. The owners are there to look posh at Cup Finals and to be in the background administering things. As far as inviting thieves in goes - it is still their fucking fault if they steal stuff. Being naiive or trusting isn't a fucking crime as far as I can see. Although these days everything's upside down isn't it.

 I look back at when I heard the news last week. I was in a brilliant restautant eating pulpo a la gallega. Gallic Octopus. My new favourite band... and hey, about that new club name, I think I've got an idea...

The Collected Wisdom of Craig

At one stage I was convinced I wanted to be a music producer. The fact I couldn't be arsed to learn about mics, staging, signal noise, blah blah blah and wasn't very good at it anyway should have told me different. Still, even despite my boredom with mathematics and utter coldness when faced with discussions about valves and compressors and shit, I still hung on to the idea.

Then, 16 years ago, I did a project with a solo singer. The idea, which we'd discussed over a pint at various gigs, was that I'd get some top-notch musicians together to back him and build up from his acoustic solo tracks into something big, poppy and brilliant. Looking at my notes I had a pianist, a string section, drummer and bassist ready to go, plus female backing vocals from someone I think I wanted to fuck but... didn't (which was a common thread then and in fact throughout my teens and twenties. Oh OK also the first half of my thirties too. Sheesh). On board was a fine and excellent engineer who has gone on to have lots of success in studio and live work all over the world.

Anyway what happened was that this songwriter then decided to start a band of his own, with his own musicians, and so we now had a three-piece**. Obviously that changed it all pretty quickly but there was still an idea there. It was worth doing. He was 21ish at the time and actually pretty good. The new approach was alright: it didn't have to be a full-on mega-production. A groovy, stripped-back band would also be cool. I mean, I love Cowboy Junkies and The Trinity Session is bloody wonderful.

But a mix of what I assumed to be cocaine-led hubris and immaturity meant that he and his crew of idiots knocked down the ideas we'd had to record him properly and carefully. So instead of six or seven sessions of 8+ hours each, we ended up with a single three-hour Sunday afternoon live recording. Which they were about two hours late to.

What irks me the most is that I missed a guest lecture by Susannah Hoffs to do one of the fucking recording sessions that we had to abandon. SUSANNAH HOFFS! I'll not forgive this no-mark never-was cunt for that one, not ever.

Anyway his guitarist - who wasn't even that good - had an ego on him the size of, oh let's say, "A fucking complete arsehole wanker who is full of fucking shit and deserves to end up on the end of a bar telling everyone what a shit business music is because he's a complete failure and never got anywhere."

Today when I was looking for something deep in the file system of an old HDD, I found a document of this dickhead's utterances. His name was, and might still be, Craig.

I present to you his wisdom as I wrote it down at the time, direct from 2003.

AKA the final nail in the coffin of my production/recording aspirations. I should thank them, I spose.

The Collected Wisdom Of Craig

“I’m the artist, you’re the scientist”

“Don’t you know Rule Number One – never mic up the bass”

“We only want to use the first take. Everything on the first take, captures the band that way” (JS: ‘Do you want to run through the songs a couple of times so you can get loose’ Craig: “No, we only do the first take, you’re not listening”)

“That sounds too forward” (JS: ‘Shall I Turn It Down Then?’ Craig: “No that won’t help, it’s forward, you know what I mean?”)

“That bass sounds miles away, there’s no wood in it, I want to hear wood” (JS: ‘Well we can change the way the amp sounds, easy, no probs’ (The put-upon bassist, who was sound: “I like the sound, don’t touch it”)

“We want a Miles Davis Drum Sound” (what era?)

“We don’t want compression or any of that shit on anything, we’re not Oasis”

“Studios are shit, it’s not music any more, it’s just numbers”

“The only mic you need is one stereo valve mic in a room”

“The best way of recording is with one five-pound computer mic in front of my PC”

“I want endless reverb on that”

“Imperfections are what makes music great” (although I sort of agree with this one)

“My last band got mentioned in NME, and you know when that happens you get America on the phone the next day don’t you?”

“It’s dead annoying really, trying to have a quiet drink and the girls won’t leave me alone after I was mentioned in the NME, but you’ve just got to smile and be nice to them, it’s part of the job isn’t it?”

“When you’re mixing this, make sure you think of the band like a shelf, right, and my guitars are round the corner and underneath, not panned or anything, you know what I mean?”

In the Mix: “What the f**k do you think you’re doing, what are you trying to get away with here lads? I heard toms in the left speaker, I don’t want anything panned or anything like that overproduced crap” (JS: ‘So you want the drums in mono?’ Craig: “No, I want them in the middle”)

In The Mix: “Why can’t I turn the toms down?” JS:’Cause we didn’t mic them up because you didn’t want us to’ Craig: ”Fuckin Disgrace this place is”)

And from his incredibly helpful mate, commenting on the percussive, hand-slap sound on the main acoustic guitar on a certain song: “You can draw that out with a pencil in Pro Tools, dead easy that.” (It isn't, because it sounds shite if you do.)

** I forgot the drummer. I think he was quite normal and happy to do whatever.