Tag Archives: reviews

Gones for a Song: Now That’s What I Call Music! 41-50

I went to Toronto at the weekend for a business trip, I spent most of the time in a hotel and in meetings, as you do. I did manage to do two things I do on every big city trip, explore by going for a run and hit up a couple of vinyl stores. I had not been to Toronnuh really before, technically I had once before, but we literally flew in, had 2 meetings and flew back to New York. I will talk more about my thoughts and impressions in Monday’s ‘Gones for Good’. I killed a good hour rack flicking but picked up a Stones Bootleg ‘Bright Lights, Big City’, which is an interesting footnote to my last choice “Get Your Yaya’s Out”, as it’s the original Stones with Brian Jones doing studio demos of blues songs and then 4 songs from the 1973 tour rehearsal in Montreux from mixing desk. I also got the re-release over a double album of White Stripes’ “Elephant” and “Countdown to Ecstasy”, which per my thoughts on the Dan last week features the ‘guitar’ band incarnation before Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter leaves. The Canadian Dollar is a friend to all visitors so I left a happy man. We are over the halfway mark, so there are some seriously great works of art ahead, as well as those albums that just get under your skin even if they never sold a ton. Let’s roll:

Number 50: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah “Only Run” 2014. Alec Ounsworth continues to this day touring as CYHSY but started the band with 3 friends in Philly in 2004. He has what could be disparagingly be called a slightly whiny voice, but so does Eric Johnson of Fruit Bats, Izaak Brock of Modest Mouse and Jordan Dreyer of La Dispute and those are all fine bands. Like them, Alec sings about the absurdity of day to day life in Modern America, like them, he gets shouty and angry at times and soft and caressing at others. The Clappers as a band were successful for a while, the kind of band that NPR’s Bob Boilen would come in his pants over, the band that Cheryl Waters would introduce them by saying their album was the best of the year. That type of accolade makes them popular but doesn’t necessarily translate into fame and fortune, so Alec still making music and taking it around is cool. I met him once and had a beer with him after a show at the Independent, nice guy. Their first album features the gloriously titled “By the Skin of my Yellow Country Teeth”, great album, as was “Some Loud Thunder”. This album, the 4th, was released after that short moment of fame had mainly passed but is to me peak Ounsworth, all big songs and a big setting, Matt Berninger kind of big, and he actually adds vocals on ‘Coming Down’. 

As WordPress does not want to embed the playlist it can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/playlist/5yvtYVRjFrLqTuxHo9heiE?si=a950e3d8e75446f2

Number 49: B-52s “The B-52s” 1979. The B-52s are almost national treasures in the way that Springteen or Madonna is and Taylor Swift will be, yet back in the late 70’s they were a dance punk band from Athens, GA. They wrote funny and ironic songs and made a fun if kitchy dance sound, they had two singers with bee-hive hair and managed to channel all that was great about life in the 1950’s without the systemic misogyny. They became bigger than life with ‘Love Shack’ from the ‘“Cosmic Thing” album, which to this day will pack any wedding dance floor, but I love their early stuff when Ricky Wilson was still alive and his strange Twilight Zone guitar sound. This contains the fabulous first single ‘Rock Lobster’ which I have on 7” vinyl and bought when it came out just on the title alone.

Number 48: Car Seat Headrest “ Twin Fantasy” 2018. Talking of whiny young men Will Barnes, aka Will Toledo is the mouth and brain behind the Headrest, he released his own stuff on Bandcamp and then when fame came knocking he released some of it again. It’s noisier than typical teenage boy bedroom rock, and it’s happily not even close to Emo. His songs have the conceit of a good education in a let’s break the 4th wall kind of knowingness. As much as he started on his own and his stuff has typical touches of the loop and double tracked vocals that is almost a trope, he actually writes big hooks in a Replacements, Swiss Family Orbison, Big Star way. This album started life as a self-penned college kid piece in 2011 but this release, sometimes shown as ‘In The Mirror’ version, is re-recorded with the full touring band. It builds on the ‘Teens of Style’ and ‘Teens of Denial’ albums with the band in 2015 and 2016, bigger, more flourishes and rocks out.

Number 47: Richard and Linda Thompson “I Want To See The Bright Lights Tonight” 1974. Richard Thompson was part of the great Fairport line up and got bored of doing straight folk so left in 1972 just as they were getting famous. He recorded his first solo album “Henry The Fly” which got panned, although it now is seen as a gem. He met on this album the singer Linda Peters who soon became his wife, muse and lead singer. They released 3 albums, this and two others before giving up on music completely and becoming Sufi Muslim in a community in the boonies. Let’s be kind and say they were on a journey and Richard is a practicing Muslim to this day, they produced 3 albums which were faith driven and not well received. They came back with “Shoot Out The Lights” just as Thompson left the pregnant Linda for a US tour promoter. It was a big hit in the US, and they toured to promote it, but the enmity between them was visible to the audience and that was the end. Thompson has produced tons of solo stuff since and is an accomplished guitarist able to play in any style. I am not a massive fan of his voice and the work as a couple is in my mind much better, this album has the glorious mix of influences with Linda’s voice and Richard’s guitar touches pulling it together.

Number 46: Radiohead “Ok Computer” 1997. I bought “Bends” while working briefly back in the UK and loved ‘Fake Plastic Trees’ and ‘Iron Lung’ and was really into their odd strung out sound as it was a contrast to the grunge that dominated mainstream rock in the US. This album if not their masterpiece is the highlight of their early years. The middle period of “Kid A” and “Amnesiac” went all a bit introspective and synth driven but they got back to writing songs with “Moon Shaped Pool” and the fabulous “In Rainbows”, which I came close to nominating. This was recorded near Bath at St Catherine’s Court, which was owned at the time by Jane Seymour, New Order also recorded “Waiting for the Siren’s Call” there. The dub reggae version of this album, “Radiodread” by the marvelous Easy Star All-Stars, shows how great the songs are on this in terms of melodies. The other interesting thing about this album even though it sounds so dense is that it was mostly recorded live which shows how much they were in-synch musically at the time.

Number 45: Roxy Music “For Your Pleasure” 1973. When they appeared on the scene as part of the Glam pop explosion Roxy were always a bit more serious, a bit more studied, a bit more elaborately coiffed than the others. They became major pop stars and Brain Ferry became a global sex symbol and as much as they drifted off into AOR pop rock in the later years the first three albums are amazing. I would argue when Brian Eno left to do his marvelous stuff elsewhere they were inevitably sliding downwards to that smooth fate. There is always a bit of lounge lizard croon to Ferry’s stylings but together with the scent of Naugahyde, whisky and cheap perfume this album creates another world in a dark club somewhere in Eastern Europe before the wall came down. “ Ta ra, ta ra” indeed.

Number 44: Yves Tumor “Heaven To A Tortured Mind” 2020. Yves Tumor channels Roxy Music as much as he channels Prince and ‘Maggot Brain’ era Funkadelic. A multi-instrumentalist, he has been making music outside the normal R&B or rap scene since 2010 but is super productive and not stuck into one groove or genre. The end result is that interesting blend of funk, guitar rock and pop, he has been quoted as saying he is inspired by Genesis P. Orridge which you can hear in the bass lines, but this is much more varied and less drony. Sean Bowie, who records as Tumor, is helped on this album by the insanely talented Diane Gordon, who also lights up Lil Yachty’s “Let’s Start Here”, and the guitarist Chris Greatti. Bowie is a name already taken in music or at least carries too much freight, so I understand the need for his/their own identity. Originally from Knoxville, TN, he has been based in Turin for a while and channelling his own inner Herman Miller has designed and made furniture as well as this fun collection.

Number 43: School of Seven Bells “Disconnect from Desire” 2010. Dream pop that follows a line back to Cocteau Twins via Slowdive and the other shoe-gaze bands, but that is very bright lit and New York rather than some gloomy northern English steel town. I liked Secret Machines which was Benjamin Curtis’ prior band and this guitar and synth dreamy pop with the twin Deheza sisters vocals was always intriguing and driven by a strong groove. They sing all the songs on the album together, rather than taking turns, and their complex vocal interplay resides at the heart of the band’s sound. The “Alpinisms” album was great but this was their peak. They had a short-lived space in the public conscience as firstly Claudia left the band, while this album was being promoted, for the ubiquitous “personal reasons” and in Feb 2013 Ben Curtis was diagnosed with a lymphoma that he succumbed to 10 months later, and then school was down and out.

Number 42: Gang of Four “Entertainment” 1977. The sound of Leeds, 1970’s angst and cheap guitars. I saw them live a couple of times in the late 70’s while at Uni and they were unique in how they mixed the political polemic and shouty, spitting punk rock. I have the “Damaged Goods” original 7” mainly because I loved the B-side ‘Armalite Rifle’ and that was their opening shot. Over several years they evolved into an odd mix of funk and punk and saw them in the early 80’s with Sara Lee on bass when they toured with ‘“Songs of The Free”. This the first album and has their classics that still stand up today, ‘Love Like Anthrax’, ‘I Found That Essence Rare’ and the brilliant ‘At Home He’s A Tourist”. Spiky anthems and lots of feedback jerky guitar from the wonderful Andy Gill.

Number 41: T Rex “Electric Warrior” 1971. Talking of glam rock, Mark Bolan and side kick Peregrine Took ( not his real name) had been playing fey folk rock and singing about elves and maidens as Tyrannosaurus Rex but then wisely, trimmed the name, went electric and with some eyeliner, a silver sparkly velvet suit and big heels they were away. They kept some of the cosmic bullshit, but now with technically their 5th album it was much more pop with Tony Visconti producing and sprinkling his special own pixie dust over it all. One of the additions was the fabulous Flo and Eddie on backing vocals, this is the same period as the “Mother’s Live At The Fillmore” but less obscenities.

The Tidal version of the playlist is here.

Gones for a song: Now That’s What I Call Music!: 60-51

‘Go on throw this stone Into this halfway home’

It was a relatively straightforward task to come up with the albums that I think are the best, I started with about 130 then knocked it down to 100 and then each week I look at the upcoming 10 and listen to them all week and some get thrown out and some get moved up. As the quality is generally getting less and less disputed or the choice is less perhaps esoteric this gets less easy, play order maybe but now if they are in they are in. It’s also been a fun exercise to reflect how one’s passions change and develop. https://open.spotify.com/embed/playlist/71QsTs9LNDN07rtxSoeSbG

Popular music has evolved since its invention at sometime in the late 1950’s. A mass media for predominantly the young generation, which facilitated the fascinations of the young, fucking, friendship, frippery and dancing the frug. Not every twist and turn since then has covered every base, I would defy anyone to dance to ‘Metal Machine Music’. The methods of distribution have changed over time on this odd journey from radio, 78’s, 45’s, albums, concept albums, 8-tracks, cassettes, Walkmans, CDs, I-Tunes, Napster, Soulseek and MP3 files and finally streaming. The artist, record company, live music venue and all the people hanging around the edges making money out of the creative process at the heart of it all has not really dramatically changed in the intervening 75 years. Someone writes a song, someone sings or plays the song, someone listens to it and pays for the pleasure. People then write about it, cheer for it and line up to see it played live. Trends come and go and what music press still exists, if any, outside of Substack, talk it up or knock it down. Looking back at these 100 albums that have meant so much to me has reminded me that if there is any common linkage from the first album from 1967 to the most recent which came out last year, its probably that you can dance the frug to all of them, badly and slowly with some but the beat does indeed go on. Halfway though, halfway home!

Number 60: Alvvays “Blue Rev” 2022. Oh, Canada does it again. This cheery bunch hails from Nova Scotia and in terms of heritage, the voice and image of Alvvays is Molly Rankin, who is the daughter of the core founders of the biggest Canadian Celtic music band, The Rankin Family, which I had heard of but other than a teen flirtation with my inner Paddy and Planxty, Celtic music is not something I have ever been that interested in. They are more of a Toronto band in practice, and this is jangly upbeat power pop in its purest form, with enough scuzzy guitar to counter the bubble gum elements. I first saw them in 2014 at Potrero Del Sol, which was the small, intimate fun one-day festival that was everything Outside Lands wasn’t. They had a great first album which featured the irrepressible “Archie, Marry Me” that I had heard thanks to those nice people at Polyvinyl Records so was desperate to see them. The next album got better and this their third continued the progress, and who doesn’t like a song about Tom Verlaine.

Number 59: Prince “1999” 1982. Well now, if you wanted to dance the Frug, or the Mashed Potato, the Texas Slide, the Latin Hustle or even the fucking Twist (which I can remember my mother and sister doing in all seriousness) this whole album is full of bangers. Prince was a genius in a way I just did not see in MJ, who seemed to be heavily dependent on Quincy Jones. Prince played killer guitar (if you have never seen it check out the solo for the George Harrison tribute here, and check out the pre-mike drop mike-drop walk off), wrote a million songs, a variety of other instruments and was pretty adept at putting together great bands, usually heavily featuring women players. 39 albums released before he died, most sold well, many were classics “Sign o’ the Times’, ‘Purple Rain’, ‘Diamonds and Pearls’ but this album I had on cassette, CD and bought again on vinyl as it is all gold, all dance beats and funk-box synth sounds.

Number 58: The Teardrop Explodes “Wilder” 1981. Julian Cope was the face of New Wave, sheepskin lined bomber jackets, blond quiff and quotes from Baudelaire. Illusions of allusions were the lyrical gems cast like pearl before swine, with faux horns and syn drums bopping away. Cope was a bigger talent than the pop leanings that the Teardrop had to produce to pay the bills, and his solo stuff allowed him to later explore the breadth of his imagination, but this album is the perfect package, upbeat, smart and more varied melodies than Morrissey and Marr ever came up with in one album. Part of the Liverpool Eric’s scene with the Bunnymen, Courtney Love was his groupie girlfriend, they were managed by Bill Drummond of the KLF and burning millions of pounds as performance art infamy. This is the second album, produced by Clive Langer, hence the shiny bounciness. The third was aborted due to ‘artistic differences’ between Dave Balfe, the keyboardist and Cope and later released to general snoozes, after the band no longer existed in any practical sense, as “Everybody Wants to Shag the Teardrop Explodes”.

Number 57: LCD Soundsystem “Sound of Silver” 2007. James Murphy’s unique schtick is to be part of the cultural milieu yet at the same time as taking the piss out of it. He is so Brooklyn and so Berlin and so in awe of French disco yet sees the shallow facade that makes up so much of the supposed glamour. He namedrops Can, Suicide, Beefheart, Daft Punk, “Setting the Controls For the Heat of the Sun” and yet it is not pastiche; he and the band had enough really love for the music that they produce great dance music, they didn’t lose their edge, they got the grooves just right. Arguably the ‘Sound of Silver’ just continues what was started with the first album, but the songs are tighter, the ideas slightly better formed. They had some more maturity, but they always seemed to be a bunch of middle-aged friends who loved music rather than a bunch of kids. They did the mature thing and stopped before it got it too boring, and then realized they missed it and have come back for more. The Franz Ferdinand vocal version of “All My Friends” is worth finding if you have not heard it and just for giggles the two songs on the playlist are from the ‘Someone Great’ remixes.

Number 56: The Smiths “Meat Is Murder” 1985. I got into the Smiths relatively early, had the first album on cassette and the ‘Hatful of Hollow’ compilation but bought ‘Meat is Murder’ as soon as it came out and still have the original vinyl, that has survived 17 different moves including crossing the Atlantic 4 times. The Smiths were quintessentially English, they wrote about the dreary life of early 80’s Manchester under the rule of Thatcher and a general sense that it could and should be so much better. Steven Morrissey and Johnny Marr bonded over a mutual love for ‘The Monochrome Set’ which is a fine basis to start a band and The Smiths reached relative commercial success thanks to John Peel, great songs and a consistent commitment to the art they were making, both in the imagery and the sound. ‘The Queen is Dead’ is excellent as well but the last album “Strangeways, Here We Come” named after the Manchester prison was a fitting symbol of the demise of the band, they didn’t really exist at the time it was released, Johnny Marr gave up and precipitated the split as he felt imprisoned in the format of the Smiths and wanted to explore other music. Sadly, none of the 4 of them achieved anything like the success they enjoyed together, Morrissey had minor solo success, Marr has been in Electronic, The The, Modest Mouse and a dozen other cameos and lots of session work. The drummer and bassist O’Rourke and Joyce have done loads of session work but not much else.

Number 55: The National “High Violet” 2010. Originally from Cincinatti but yet another Brooklyn band they are now almost national treasure status, having been around for 25 years. Matt Berninger’s laconic drawl has been getting milder and more restrained of late, but I first saw them at Brixton Academy in 2005, the first gig I had been to in years, due to parenting and living in a musical desert, San Luis Obispo for 4 years. I loved the crazed anger of ‘Murder Me Rachel’ from the “Sad Songs For Dirty Lovers” and that was a highlight of the gig, and I was hooked. I have seen them twice since, and they are a great live band, all good musicians, and have so far avoided the consequences of the rock and roll life. As much as they have got more restrained, they have not stopped evolving their sound to keep it interesting, the vignettes of life that Berninger shares are all relatable in a Paul Auster kind of way. They have released 11 albums, and this is my favorite but there are two or three others that are up there, ‘Trouble Will Find me’ and ‘First Two Pages of Frankenstein’ are brilliant.

Number 54: Stereolab “Emperor Tomato Ketchup” 1996. Sounds like the Velvets with two girls singing counterpoint harmonies and one is French, drone heaven! What was there not to like about these guys, the musical equivalent of the entente cordiale although it’s a stretch to call the band Anglo-French, which you see sometimes, as 3 were English, one was Australian plus good old Laetitia Sadier and they have always been based in England. I first discovered their baroque mix of electronics, krautrock, Brazilian samba and lounge-core with their second album ‘Transient Random-Noise Bursts with Announcements’. They always did ironic album titles as they were music nerds as well as musicians, their second EP was called “Stunning Debut Album”. The band members changed over time with the core of Tim Gane and Sadier, the only constant. Mary Hansen was a constant until her death in 2002, she was killed by a truck while riding her bike. Sean O’Hagen of High Llamas was a member for a few years and contributed to this album, which was produced by John McIntire of Tortoise fame. This is more approachable and less drony than some of their stuff but if you like this they released 10 albums between 1992 and 2010 but in principle they are still around. They have each done solo stuff and they release what they loosely call compilations which includes live tracks, demos and odd versions to this day.

Number 53: Steely Dan “Katy Lied” 1976. The Dan were the thinking man’s rock band, all oblique references to mid century noir literature and the sound becoming progressively less like rock and more like the Crusaders. This was the first album after the departure of Jeff ‘Skunk’ Baxter to the Doobie Brothers, who together with the Eagles and Jackson Brown formed the new Western American sound. Becker and Fagan meanwhile wanted nothing to do with the wild west, they belonged in lounge bars somewhere off Hollywood Boulevard. The ‘Royal Scam’ came out the following year, also primarily recorded with session musicians but that was 1976 and punk happened and these geezers were definitely not cool by then. ‘Aja’ came out in 77 and is so slick and jazz driven that it is usually found in any high end Hi Fi shop who wants to show off their speakers and $5000 valve amp. To me “Katy Lied” is the perfect peak of Fagan and Becker’s ingenuity yet still constrained by the sense of a band and making a rock album and it all went a little bit boring and jazz from this point forward.

Number 52: Damien Jurado “Brothers And Sisters Of The Eternal Son” 2014. Damien is an old school singer songwriter that has been making records since the late 90s, he has been around long enough that he has been releasing his latest material on his own label. He is a great storyteller and creates worlds to entice you in and take part in the journey. He has a classic American voice so does much of his work with just that powerful voice and acoustic guitar, but he hit a strong creative streak starting in 2010 with ‘Saint Bartlett’ where he used loops, drums and synths to flesh out his songs and the virtual band setting really suited his material. I saw him live a couple of times in 2013 and 2015 and he had a bunch of effect pedals, so he was able to bring the album stuff to life even though it was basically him and his guitar. This album is the strong finish to the suite of 3 albums around a theme of new worlds and the big band sound.

Number 51: The Rolling Stones “Get Yer Ya-Ya’s Out”1970. The Stones are more of an institution than simply a band and in some form or another have been around for over 60 years, still releasing albums and more incredibly still selling out stadiums. They had two creative peaks; the sprawling double album ‘Exile on Main Street’ is a giant work and has some glorious moments; the other was arguably ‘Let It Bleed’ in 1969. It is a superb album but as much as I have listened to it and loved it, the live version of it is ‘Get Your Ya-Ya’s Out” and I have played the shit out of this album over the years. They were monsters live, the rhythm of Wyman’s bass, the much missed Charlie Watts and Keith Richard’s rhythm guitar drives the whole thing. This is Mick Taylor on guitar and as much as I loved the Faces Ronnie Wood is no Mick Taylor. This Mick Jagger is the full young prancing prince version, and his stage patter is ever present (“Charlie’s good tonight isnt he?!”) and he can play a reasonably serious harmonica. So, this is ‘Let It Bleed’ on steroids and you understand if you have this much fun playing live you would be happy to do this into your 80’s.

The Tidal version of the playlist is here as their embed coding doesnt work on Subtsack.

Gones for a cuppa: Episode 19 – The British invasion

I left Lyon airport on Friday morning for a quick trains, planes and automobiles jaunt to rural Somerset. A green and bucolic land despite its association with the Herman Hess of the Tory Party, Jacob Rees-Mogg. I am not sure whether young Jacob endured an attempted suicide, a spell in a mental institution and direct guidance by a theologian, but he certainly acted in Parliament like he did. No-one I met in Frome, North Somerset, could actually identify which part of North Somerset he represented in the house, but everyone denied it was where they lived. I was in Frome for that very American of institutions, the high school reunion. It was my first time back in four years and only my 4th time back in 30 years or so. It has changed a lot, and yet again it has not. Most of the streets and the grand old buildings are there, many have changed their purpose in life. There is a bypass, a ring road, roundabouts and many places to drink coffee, so many I expected a jittery level of attention to be everywhere, but instead it is just as sleepy as it was when most of us left. For that, you can blame the chai. It has a slightly boho, aging hippy vibe with overly frequent appearance of home knitted clothing, man buns, yoga mats and far too many crocs for my personal taste. In a counter culture sign of accord they seem to have driven the banks out of business, the 3 major banks that flanked the old Market Cross are reduced to one, and it has a sign in the window announcing its imminent closure. Nat West, as was, is a tattoo parlor, is this Frome or is this Brooklyn?

I made the rookie error of getting a train to Frome on a Friday afternoon in the summer. I got the Heathrow Express to Paddington and then waited for my train to Weymouth. Finally, the platform was announced and then what can only be described as a stampede took place to get through the ticket barriers and on the train. It was if there was free money hidden in the seats the degree of commitment to breach the barriers, finally the Great Western Railways staff, fearing for the life of their colleagues opened up two luggage gates and gave up scanning tickets. I was swept along in that flood and luckily found myself ahead of most of the crowd, still slowly scanning tickets. I found a place for my overly large suitcase and sat down in a seat. The train then filled and filled some more and then the aisles were filled, and we left almost on time. The Great Western Railways Train Manager then spent the next few minutes apologizing for the crush, blaming the powers-that-be for having allocated too small a train, a very British complaint. They must go through intensive empathy training or something, as his constant apologies became as much background noise as the rattle of the rail. Finally, after 25 minutes we arrive in our first stop Reading where I had assumed folks would get off and the pressure would be relieved but of course there is a link now from Heathrow and there were more not less people on the platform with large suitcases desperately trying to go west. This was the breaking point for the beleaguered Train Manager and on our behalf he decided that enough was enough, and he was cancelling the train and let those above him, who caused the problem, to have to address its solution. What the fuck? I was alright, Jack, I had a seat and my bag was safely stowed. But no I now had to find another train as if this was full every train following on a Friday afternoon would be full plus our train load. The local knowledge did help and I just got on the next train to Bath where I was sure I could get a train to Frome. Or so I thought as I am standing waiting for the Frome train at Bath Spa, and they announce my Frome train is cancelled, so I should get on the Warminster train to Westbury where they will either bus or taxi us to Frome. We get to Westbury and no-one has any idea about buses or taxis, they do have a Frome train though, arriving in 25 minutes. This is turns out is the train that was cancelled and now mysteriously uncanceled. Waiting at Westbury, what should arrive but the train that I had originally left Paddington on 4 hours earlier, hopefully with either a new Train Manager or the same one on sedatives. So based on my limited experience, GWR may go west, but its rails are used sparingly and the service is anything but great. I completed my transportation trifecta with a taxi to the George Hotel which was our base for the weekend.

We had a fun weekend with lots of memorializing and appropriately named the WhatsApp group for the event sharing of photos, the “Whatever happened to What’s-his-name” group. Four of us got covered in mud hiking a great 8km circular trail around the villages of Mells and Great Elm on the Saturday morning. We ate well, and we drank modest rather than outrageous amounts of beer, including at the celebrated Griffin, home of Milk Street Brewery, opposite our elementary school which is still a functioning place of learning for the little tykes of Frome. It’s in a part of town that when we would walk the 3/4 of a mile to school each day was very run down. Referred to as Chinatown by the locals, it was full of the small old working class cottages of the 19th Century when the town’s weaving and industrial past was at its height, now all restored or gone completely many were derelict in our time. The Georgian nature of the town is still there, with many narrow streets and pathways spread over the hillside. The old printing works is now apartments and the industry that remains is banished to the peripheral trading estates. Frome had an odd atmosphere partly because until its relative recent resurgence it always had an air of former glory, the old large buildings and the many houses were for workers needed in the 19th century not needed again until after the 1980s when it rose for the first time in over 100 years. Frome originally in the 19th century heyday had 52 pubs, one for every week of the year, now many, including our former stomping grounds are gone, some as homes, some as stores and some sad, boarded up and falling apart.

If I had been in France on Saturday, I would have seen the unusual name of a saint to celebrate, that of St Germaine Cousin. Weak and ill, the girl had been born with a right hand that was deformed and paralyzed. Germaine was born near Toulouse in 1579 in a village called Pibrac and her relics are still revered there. She has a Cinderella element to her tale due to the appearance of an evil stepmother. She developed scrofula as a child, and her stepmother used it as an excuse for her to be banished from the family home. Abused by her stepmother, she lived a simple life as a shepherdess but was very pious and there were stories told of her parting waters of flooded rivers and other minor miracles before her untimely death at 21. The real magic started when her body was buried in the parish church of Pibrac in front of the pulpit. In 1644, when the grave was opened to receive one of her relatives, her body was found to be perfectly preserved so as this was in the era before Netflix and other diversions they decided to have it on public view near the pulpit. A noblewoman donated a lead casket to hold the body, and the first of several miraculous cures happened due to her relics. The casket was displayed in the church and opened in 1660 and again in 1700 and the body still it refused to rot, the local Archbishop of Toulouse testified there was no embalming. Some strange guy had an issue with this during the Revolution, and he and some mates took the body out of the casket, dug a grave and threw the body in with quick lime. It was rescued and still shown to be in good condition other than where the quick lime had attacked it. All the while miracles keep occurring, cures of blindness, of congenital disease, of hip and spinal disease and a miraculous mystery multiplication of food for the distressed community of the Good Shepherd at Bourges in 1845. The plea for beatitude attested more than 400 miracles in total and thirty fan letters from archbishops and bishops in France. Pius XI granted their wish in 1854. Her name has nothing to do with German Cousin, which I will admit to being slightly disappointed to discover.

On the food front this week, we celebrated our escape to the countryside of Soane et Loire with dinner at Doucet’s Bistro Quai. It is such a well run and efficient place to have in your backyard. His Michelin one-star restaurant is across the road, but the simple yet perfectly executed fare of Quai reflects the fact that the star chef is at the helm. Doucet himself came through and greeted every table and we, being locals I suppose, got the more personal handshake and smile. I had trout carpaccio followed by a Charollais steak with beef-fat french fries which were as decadent as they sound. Back in England I could not resist the ‘full monty’, it is one of the treats of staying at a hotel. Not sure which is more deleterious to the health, this or the beef-fat chips.