Squire Black Dove Rides Out

The picture above shows Two Lone Weatherdolls. Except they're not alone, they're together, along with a replica of a Lewis chessman from the British Museum and a load of other bits and bobs that fill up the front of shelves in my house. The Weatherdolls are the work of Claire Doll, a teenage friend of Andrew Weatherall. Claire began making them in lockdown in the aftermath of Andrew's untimely death five years ago today. She raffled them for charity. The slightly smaller one on the right, I won in a raffle. The larger one on the left, was won by a friend and then passed to a friend who passed it to me to look after on behalf of the Flightpath Estate (he holds a copy of our album under his arm), to accompany us when DJing (he came to Head in Stretford last July when me, Martin and Dan played there and will make the journey to The Golden Lion for AW62 in April this year). 

What Andrew would have made of this is anyone's guess. He was largely I think unfussed by fame. He turned away from the light of celebrity and the greasy pole on many occasions, choosing the road less travelled. He would have chuckled about all of this I'm sure, and been secretly pleased too, the way people have kept his name and spirit alive since that day, 17th February 2020. 

His business acumen was fairly haphazard. Recently Lizzie, his partner when he died in 2020 and for the many years before that, said that in 2019 he found an envelope of cash in the studio, the payment for a DJ gig or remix presumably, and said they should 'spunk it on a holiday'. In her post Lizzie added she was grateful for his 'slipshod accounting' and said that we should on this day, 'raise a cup of splosh and a Tunnocks tea cake or two in his honour, play something fitting... and keep him present'.

I know as well as anyone from my experience in recent years that we keep those who have gone alive by speaking about them and by remembering them. This blog has done its best to do that in the years since Mr Weatherall left us. He was an inspiration in so many ways. His loss is enormous and felt daily. Wherever you are Andrew, thank you.

Breakdown (Squire Black Dove Rides Out)

Breakdown was a One Dove single, released in 1993 after a year of record company shenanigans and delays. After his work on Screamadelica Andrew went almost immediately into the producer's role on One Dove's album Morning Dove White (with Hugo Nicolson at his side, his studio engineer and right hand man in those early years). One Dove's album is the equal of Screamadelica, in many ways a more even and complete album. The spacious, dubbed out songs with Andrew's magic FX dust sprinkled over them and Dot's voice on top float by in a post- acid house haze, the sun coming up on the morning after. Sabres Of Paradise were coming into being by the time Andrew worked on Morning Dove White and Hugo's presence was also required by Primal Scream as their on stage, the man who provided the sequencer and sample action, a key part of the Screamadelica live shows. The One Dove tracks are as a result split between those done by Andrew and Hugo and those done by Andrew with Jagz and Gary (Hugo did Fallen and Breakdown, Sabres  much of the rest). The Squire Black Dove remix of Breakdown is a lengthy, full on, widescreen Sabres dub excursion, with samples from Exorcist by Shades Of Rhythm, a bass loop from They Came In Peace by Tranquility Bass, a bucket of dubbed out space, rimshots and melodica from Andrew's imagination, and a vocal sample from who knows where- 'against the black blue sky/ The shadow of the dove/ An open mind's excursion... can you remember? The shadow of the dove...'