I truly hate disruption in the force but two very odd yet interconnected occurances have ruffled my leisure hours. I found myself in Sutton Courtenay last week on the way back from London for a biannual visit to the suitably unimposing grave of Eric Arthur Blair, aka George Orwell. Normally three of  us who once shared a flat in north London meet to have a wander around the cemetery and a few drinks in the adjacent pub where we talked about Orwellian things and their impact on our student days. However, I arrived to learn that Minsky an ancient pal had lost his game of chess with grim reaper last month and the other long standing self abuser had to leave early for a check up on his one kidney.

I found myself in reflective mode sitting in a nearby Abingdon pub and wondering if I'd be here alone in two years time. Anyway, I noticed a face from many years ago. The penny took a while to drop but I had met him a couple of times with Benyon, so I introduced myself and we talked for a long time about publishing and the record business of several decades ago. He had been a quantitative researcher and general number cruncher who once worked for IPC and he explained the demographics behind the rise and demise of the NME readership and  the inevitable success of Smash Hits. It was a rambling chat during which I lost the plot several times but we shook hands on parting and I promised to get in touch on my next trip to Sutton Courtenay.

 I arrived back at the seaside shack and began thinking about starting to blog again but the energy wasn't there. Today the weather was freezing and as depressing as it has been for months and I cut a glum figure crossing the beach on my way to my local with the intention of watching Arsenal play Chelsea. It was an ideal setting with a roaring fire and half a dozen grim faced regulars. The barman, an Gooner fast losing patience with the first half, sighed and muttered "you were on Twitter, yesterday, evidently you're not who you think you are". I should just  have left it like that. Anyway, he follows Nick Logan on Twitter and during one pub lock-in showed me his pristine collection of 1-20 mint condition issues of The Face. I hate Twitter and Tweeting and all the twitchy tapping that goes with it. I would like to say 'get a life' but that would be hypocritical.

Evidently Ian Penman, who I've never met, was tweeting with Dave Hepworth once of Smash Hits, who I don't recall meeting although he once did a double act with Mark Ellis, someone I  have met, who once played in a band with Blair, Tony not Eric, in Oxford, close to Sutton Courtenay. Anyway, I'm not sure if it was Logan or Hepworth who said I was a pseudonym which I must have been since I started smoking in the playground using a very cool Zip lighter borrowed from an older brother and earning the nickname.

Staggering home I dwelt on Orwelian themes mixed with stolen identity paranoia and all that stuff. Technology is great but at the same time it's a total bastard. It giveth with one hand and grabs you by the throat with the other. To room 101 with the lot of it.

I'm back home at long last.

A friend died in the spring and I had to sort out the mess he'd left behind. It wasn't made easy  due to the old black dog returning and the endless bloody rain left me feeling like escaping. So I stayed away and rented out this place to a chum who wouldn't leave due to a relationship he'd formed with one of the village people. He also trashed the place after taking 'something he found'. 

All I want to do is settle back into the rhythm of life I like best but so far I've been making a list of what's missing from this place. But I shall scan some more gags because I'm determined to sort out Benyon's debris which I have added to on my travels as everyone who has something of his now thinks I'm an official archivist, which I'm not.

"Between yesterday's acid and today's nihilism I seem to have drifted from the main rut of Groovessence". A groove is a cool rut, or is it ? It's okay staying in a groove but you always have to get out of a rut. Watching the sun bounce brilliantly off the sea this morning while drinking strong black coffee I'm struggling to work out if I am in a rut or a groove. I mean, has my groove, maaaaaaaaaaaaan, become a rut. He who rides a tiger may never dismount and he who is in a rut may never get out.  Gaspo!

Back to the gag which is ancient, about the time Angie Bowie, Dave, Mick and Bianca were going through their transvestite, clubbing period and Ken Russel was still hot. It was an attempt to get El Groover a partner, which failed to get off the ground and was an extra figure to draw which Benyon wouldn't have liked.

The rain started immediately the hosepipe ban was introduced because of the drought and I've been driven off the beach. It's even been too cold and wet to have a liquid lunch outside watching the world, well at least half a dozen people, pass by.

Anyway, I turned up this gag which puzzled me for a moment until I remembered  the publicity for Bruce Springsteen's first London gig. Bruce the Boss, the "future of rock'n'roll' as claimed by an American Journo whose name rather frustratingly escapes me. The first album was great and 'Baby we were born to crash at strangers pads smoking dope' was a favourite of mine.

It seems a lifetime since the Berlin wall came down and the Czechs got to vote Hmmm,  a lot of bands have floated under the bridge since then and gone straight over the weir.

 

I sat up with a bottle of red wine last night and listened to Vanilla Fudge and became so depressed that I needed a quick burst of the Young Rascals before crashing out. So, where did Pronto come from? Obviously he was based on Tonto the Lone Ranger's sidekick but I remember a roadie called George who lived in Benyon's flat for quite a few years. He came down with the Bakerloo Line and stayed on to work for May Blitz. He was a part of the Birmingham lot who knew Black Sabbath from their early days. He used to come back in the early hours of the morning wired up and he'd wake Benyon by emptying the nights takings on him before handing it on to 'the management' or just give him a good shake and as 'cup of tea?'. He was a good guy and strong as an ox. I remember standing in the kitchen at the flat late at abut 3am and George came running up the stairs with a full size fridge on his back shouting 'check this out, man'. He also had hilarious stories about meeting various bands while sleeping in vans on Belgian bomb sites or on the cross channel ferry. These days kids creep off into their cellars alone and post their stuff onto You Tube. It's all very different to transit vans with aircraft seats  and signs saying Hatfield and the North.

 

Classic early Groover from Ziggy Stardust days, waxed spikes and rat codpieces and early hat with references to the Lone Ranger. It was drawn on an odd piece of paper unlike later drawings on illustration board. Benyon had been working with Patto on an album sleeves and some odd adverts for the Melody Maker and met Muff Winwood who was involved with the band and it was in his office that he head Mott the Hoople's version of 'all the young dudes'. He couldn't get Ian Hunter out of his head but after 'roll away the stone' MTH trickled away into the sand. I knew I had the band's first album upstairs and after finding the cartoon I started to look for it and got waylaid by two Vanilla Fudge albums that I can't remember buying and then I saw Benyon's name written on the inner sleeve. He was sharing a flat and wrote his name on his albums in those days. Maybe he lent them to me but I really can't remember how I come to have them. But wondering, looking, thinking and a long lunch took up most of yesterday, c'est le groove.